Defiled
by JessicaJ
Summary: Nobody could know. Nobody would ever want to know what horrors his body bore. Nobody.
1. First

**First**. _Adj_. Being before all others with respect to time, rank, importance etc.

-0-

It came as a shock to them all.

They were all caught unawares in the late twilight, struggling through rain and the terrain to find a suitable place to camp for the night. Exhausted, senses dampened rather literally as well as figuratively by the background static of rain upon the ground, they did not detect their assailants until it was rather too late.

When questioned later, in the open air of their hastily assembled camp, all hushed whispers as they conferred in as much confidence as their close confines could afford them, none could recall the precise moment the transition occurred, nor the precise details. None could, save for the one man they were avoiding.

As it happened, Vincent recalled every moment of his transformation with perfect and rather painful clarity.

They all knew so little about him, their alliance so recently forged. Given the circumstances of their meeting, it really should have come to them as no surprise that demons lurked within Vincent, nor that he assumed their shape. Yet Tifa could not avoid the gnawing reality, conjured by an image she had taken from witnessing the whole torrid experience, which lurked and prodded at her conscience; Vincent had been as horrified, if not more so, than they.

The chatter around the campfire was rather subdued, leaving Tifa to ferment in a perfect storm of concern and guilt, her eyes repeatedly flickering toward the tent within which Vincent lay. She knew better that to assume him asleep. She doubted anyone, of any disposition, would be in the same circumstances.

Casting a glance aside to her comrades and finding them occupied, she rises from her lonely sentry by the fire and crosses to his tent.

She is unsurprised to find it vacant.

Stepping away from the warmth and the light of the fire, the fragments of recollection of his transformation return, haunting the periphery of her mind and rendering even the slightest of shadow a threat or manifestation of a nightmare.

She finds him barely a minute's walk from camp, weapon resting across his lap, seated in the relative shelter of a tree with low, broad branches. He flicks his eyes upward, acknowledging and flinching from her presence.

"I was worried you were gone," She sighs, relieved, inflecting as much positivity and vigor into her tone and manner. She approaches as close as she feels he might be comfortable with, crouching to huddle beneath the shelter of the tree, with her back to the trunk, alongside him.

"In case I were stalking you all, waiting to catch you unawares?" His tone is bitter. No doubt he had heard some of the vocalised concerns at the camp.

She chooses her words carefully. "Can you blame them – us – for our fears? We do not know you. We all saw..."

He sighs, running a hand down his face in a wearied gesture. "I know. Forgive me."

"There is truly nothing to forgive," She feels brave, reaching out a hand to rest at the crease of his elbow. He is thankful she has chosen his right arm to touch, his left a rather poorly understood patchwork of odd sensations and a buckled metal gauntlet. He had had little time and privacy since leaving the mansion to fully explore Hojo's _gifts_.

His gaze flickered downward, to consider the alien concept of human touch that had been bestowed upon him. Her fingers are warm, considering the inclement conditions, even though the fabric of his shirt. "I want to understand. I want to help."

"Truly?" Hopeful, horrified by the concept.

"We are on the same side, Vincent. You're one of us."

"Its name is Galian." He intones quietly, getting to his feet. It takes her a few seconds, in the wake of his revelation regarding his monstrous alter ego, to note he has outstretched his palm in offer of support.

"Is it as gentlemanly as you are?" She offers a small smile, which she is delighted to note he appears to return; from what parts of his face she can see, anyway. His fingers feel deft, cool against hers.

"Indeed it is not. Yet it does desire to protect its comrades. That much I do know."

"Comrades?" She tilts her head, a small smile still playing on her lips. "Well, that's an encouraging start."

Vincent, in spite of everything, as they walk back to the camp side by side, feels immeasurably grateful for this young woman.

-0-

So many scars. That is all he can see at first. It disgusts him, repulses him enough that from that moment he undresses in the dark, and only then, if necessity demands it.

A 'Y' section, commonly performed during autopsies of the dead. Various scarred puncture wounds – needles, he suspects. One familiar, an appendectomy from decades past. The centre of his left palm bears an ugly burn, an angry scar at its heart- defensive wounds from the shotgun blast that Hojo unleashed. Shrapnel wounds mar his right shoulder, his chest, and the very underside of his jaw, so close to his jugular. A spidery network of incisions across the inside and back of the left hand, careless repairs of the damage showing only a willing to keep him from death for as long as was possible.

The nerves in his fingers do not seem to work as they should, and so the gauntlet is something to grip onto, to hide his deformity, and deter curiosity with horror.

Hidden within the confines of his room at the inn, still he feels exposed, stood stripped to the waist and pallid in the bathroom mirror. Nobody could know. Nobody would ever want to know what horrors his body bore.

Nobody.

Hojo had turned him into a macabre mockery of a man, his flesh into a vile patchwork. From sight alone, he did not know what other malformations might lay beneath the surface of his skin. He and his newfound comrades had together bore witness to what lurked within him, beckoned from a slumber by violence and the promise of blood.

He tries to deter his mind from returning to the waking nightmare of that night, of his first transformation. He had managed to put a week's worth of days and nights between them, yet he knew that distance nor time would separate his mind from reliving the horror with perfect clarity.

Clenching his teeth, grinding his molars together, he tries to override the memory of another sensation; of sharp canines, elongating, splitting his gums, crowding his mouth until he feels like his lips may split, his smile tearing at the edges, unable to contain them. Beneath horrified, trembling fingers, his jaw cracks, dislocates, lengths. His maws widen, chin and teeth and nose stretching and becoming snout-like. His breathing comes in heated bursts, bellows. He fights to remove the gauntlet, so tight that he feels his arm might burst, constricted as it was across his forearm. Just in time, before his knuckles pop, nails hardening, blackening, elongating into claws...

His knees buckle beneath him. He catches himself on the sink, head bowed over the tap as it softly drips. His fingers are so pale, they are barely distinguishable from the off-white of the porcelain sink, knuckles whitening in a desperate grip; irreconcilable with the thinkened, amaranthine hide of Galian.

He relives the sensation of slick heat sliding from his hairline, the points of viscious horns splitting his scalp, blinking blood from his eyes...

The tiles echo his dry sob around him in the dark.

"Vincent?"

A tap at the door of his room brings him back into the now. A quick glance in the shattered mirror (He did not recall punching it, though his bloodied and sore knuckles attest to the truth of such an action having taken place) reveals his wan, clammy face, surrounded by swathes of black hair. No horns. No fangs. No purple hide.

"Vincent, are you alright?"

It's Tifa.

"Y-Yes." He calls back, voice cracking a little from disuse. He reaches for his shirt, buttoning it in haste. Locked door or no, he is conscious of even the remotest possibility of his bodily horrors being seen.

"Dinner is being served downstairs. I thought you may wish to join us," she pauses on the other side of the door, and the silence is palpable. He screws his eyes shut. "Or if you like, I don't mind bringing some up for you later?"

He released a long shaking breath. "I would be most grateful if you would."

"No problem!" She responds brightly. The floorboards creak, receding footsteps indicating she was returning downstairs, satisfied with his answer for now.

"Thank you, Tifa." He sighs, palms braced against the door, shoulders sagging.

Yet again, he was grateful for having met this woman.

-0-

 _A/N_ : _On the basis that Death Gigas and Hellmasker, Levels 2 and 3 of Vincent's limit breaks respectively, were created to express two very specific horror tropes, I am going to, for the purposes of this story, ignore that they exist. It's Galian, and Chaos. The end._

 _A new project, centring around Vincent's physche asa result of his transformations. I have most of a chapter 2 written, and a firm idea for chatper 3. I think it might take 4._

 _I've experimented with this theme before in Purgatory, a four-part project I am super proud of having completed, so if this interests you and you haven't yet read the above, then I encourage you to do so._

 _This story could take place with my Catalyst universe, or Purgatory for that matter, but I'm happy for it to be new, to be alone._

 _Reviews, thoughts, ideas, criticisms welcome, as ever._


	2. Favoured

**Favoured.** _Adj._ The state of being approved or held in high regard; excessive kindness or unfair partiality; preferential treatment.

-0-

Galian had made himself known since that day, infrequently bursting forth in the midst of battle to extract them from some tight spot or another. One never really got used to it, Tifa reflected, though it didn't take long to associate his coming with a sense of relief; Galian's arrival meant a swift end to their current conflict after all, though at the expense of Vincent's temperament.

She had taken to studying him, as often as she could spare her attention. Even when she had little to give, she made sure to keep a watchful eye – or two, if she could - on him in the immediate aftermath of a transformation. He receded into himself, if it were possible to do so whilst travelling, fighting and living in close quarters with seven other people, and two cats (of sorts).

It had taken her months of careful study and nurtured conversation to develop even a foundation of understanding. On good days, they even had a little rapport, Tifa and Vincent. She'd taken to amusing herself on long hikes by inventing word games. Vincent, apparently somewhat intellectually inclined, had risen to her bait a few times, until it became a device they used to fill their time crossing country.

It all came down to nuance, she told Aeries, who did what she could to press Tifa on her attempts to circumvent Vincent's hermit-like tendencies. One thing Tifa was sure of was Vincent felt no less emotion than any of them; it was only that his magnitude of expression was sufficiently diminished that someone who did not care to notice, or paid little attention, would not recognise a shift in the gunman's countenance.

While irritated or feeling ill at ease, Vincent took to clenching his fists, an act which he did his best to mask with the tight folding of his arms. When amused, or rarer still if he smiled, the bridge of his nose would crinkle a little, and his eyes seemed to take on a new lightness. Regrettably, she was never close enough to appreciate nor study this more comprehensively, and so it became a secret mission of hers to get a full-on laugh out of him one of these days, ideally de-caped, though she would take anything at this point.

When he was sad, everything seemed to sag; As if he weighted thrice what he normally did, rendering the simplest act of lifting his eyes to meet a gaze a near-impossible feat of strength. This, she had observed more times than she cared for. It troubled her to see him defeated so in the wake of a transformation, or at times when he found himself apparently unobserved and idle; for in that idleness, the horrors and mistakes of one's past were able to catch up and overwhelm him completely.

-0-

In-keeping with Avalanche's tendency to get into trouble at every turn and in spite of only recently being liberated from the Corel prison, they came rather suddenly upon the Turks in the forest on the outskirts of Gongoga.

Reno and Rude, as they were known, made for formidable foes. Vincent sensed trepidation from Tifa for the battle ahead - most unlike her, he thought – though he rapidly assembled an understanding of her concerns through observation.

Reno, the red-headed arrogant Turk who levelled rather a few less that respectful comments Tifa's way regarding her choice of garb (not to mention certain aspects of her feminine form), favoured a modified nightstick as his choice of weapon. When delivering a blow, a sharp jolt of electricity coursed through the unfortunate soul on the receiving end. Tifa, being a hand-to-hand combatant, had suffered at the receiving end of Reno's ire a couple of times before, it seemed.

"I'll take the loudmouth," Vincent told her, raising his weapon and levelling it at the red-head. "You concentrate on the other."

"Vincent, be careful." She levels a loaded gaze at him, before hurtling into the fray.

The combat was messy and uncoordinated. Rude was tough; he had at least another thirty pounds on Tifa, so she needed to rely on speed and evasion to get the better of him, biding her time for an opening, any sign of weakness to exploit with her fists. Reno kept both Cloud and Vincent occupied; Swords conducted electricity, much to Cloud's chagrin, leaving Vincent on the periphery trying to keep the red-head off the swordsman long enough for him to land a swing. In such close quarters, flying bullets could prove fatal to the wrong party, and so he guarded each shot jealously.

He would have to make them count.

Reno, grinning devilishly and laughing like a mad man, delivered a rather meaningful swing with his nightstick, punching his thumb on the underside of the grip as he did so. Cloud parried easily, though the excess energy from the voltage booster needed to go somewhere, unfortunately for Cloud. The blond was sent flying backwards, sword still clenched tightly in his convulsing fist, only coming to rest when he collided with a large oak. He slid to the ground, lifeless, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. Unconscious.

"Cloud!" Vincent yelled, though he was unable to spare more than a backward glance to investigate the welfare of his comrade. Reno, victoriously swinging the nightstick around before him, is readying himself for more. Vincent glances toward Tifa; she is holding Rude off, but barely. He can tell she is tiring; arms braced before her, blocking incoming blows, quivering with exertion.

"It's not looking so good for you, is it Vamp?" Reno offers a mock pout, slamming the hard edge of his weapon into his gloved palm.

"I'm not worried," Vincent replies, staring down the barrel of his weapon. "It seems the Turks aren't up to much these days."

"Ah yes, Hojo did mention one of his little experiments was out and about. Tell me, is it true that he hacked you apart all because you fucked his wife?"

Vincent's grip tightens on his weapon, though his arm does not waver. Yet, he does not fire. Reno knows what he is doing. He purposefully stands between Vincent's line of fire and Tifa, knowing very well any errant shot could end up hurting or killing her.

"There's much Dr Hojo has neglected to inform you," Vincent notes coolly, taking a slow, sauntering step to the side. Reno, not to be outwitted easily, takes a step backward, closer to the fracas behind them, thus increasing the risk of collateral damage.

"Oh yeah? Do tell. I heard he cut you open neck to naval. Ain't nothing left inside of you but mechanical parts."

Vincent grinds his teeth, jaw set beneath his cowl. Reno smirks, backing closer to Tifa and Rude.

"Yo babe," Reno calls over his shoulder to Tifa. "I heard you found this guy in a coffin – is this the sort of _freak_ Avalanche is accepting into the party now?"

This distraction means one of Rude's hits land, a vicious right hook, square on her jaw. She stumbles backward, disoriented, barely able to stand from the impact. Rude quickly moved to grip her biceps from behind, pulling her shoulder blades together tightly so she cannot move.

Reno drapes a navy-suited arm around Tifa's waist, nightstick pressed against her throat. Her lip is split from Rude's attack, an angry crimson line of blood carving down her chin, crawling along her collar bone and into the small valley of her throat, before it pours out and pulses gently down and between her breasts.

"Let her go," Vincent whispers, not lowering his aim. He can smell her blood on the air, metallic and sharp. His pupils dilate, and saliva slickens the underside of his tongue. He swallows.

Good. Let him come.

"Come on, let us have some fun. We promise we'll give her back." Reno's hand is where it shouldn't be, and Vincent is furious beyond measure.

"I won't ask you again." A vein pulses in Vincent's temple, rather painfully, as though a migraine approached.

"Rude- Have you heard this guy? We've got his lady friend against the ropes and _he's_ making threats. I say we teach them _both_ a lesson."

"-I can't be held responsible for what I do to you if you don't." He lets his weapon drop to the ground with a metallic thud. Hand free, he begins to unbuckle his gauntlet.

Reno turns to Rude. "Can he even hear what I'm saying?!"

Rude leans in, sunglasses glinting. "He's taking his cape off."

"What?!"

Vincent feels the familiar and unwelcome sensations that precede a transformation washing over him in waves. It is almost like being drunk at first; slightly dulled senses, the edges of awareness bleeding away until one can only consider what is before you. After a moment, the agony sets in, a boiling from within that sets tissue aflame as it forms a new shape.

Half-slumped against Reno, and still reeling, Tifa tries her best to distract the Turks from what is going on before them, in the hope that Vincent can catch them off guard. Secretly, she also wishes to distance herself from Galian's attack if she can; she has no wish to test the theory of whether he can truly recognise friend from foe in this circumstance.

Her wriggling and struggling earns her a backhanded slap from Reno across her face. She cries out as pain explodes over the already present ache, stars dancing across her vision.

A monster stands where Vincent had stood, only his cape and his discarded weapon upon the forest floor proof he had existed at all.

Reno and Rude had rather taken full notice of this, in spite of her theatrics. Well, it was do or die. She leans as far forward as she can before throwing back her head as sharply as possible, cranium meeting Rude's face with considerable impact. Reflex sends his hands flying to cover his injury and thus she is released, rather inelegantly, to fall and scramble in the dirt and out of Vincent's wake.

Hulking purple hide, roaring with deep, gravely lungs, he swings huge, powerful arms before him with enough force to level trees. Rude, with his bloodied face, and Reno, mouth agape, take a few moments to assess the situation before silently and collectively deciding that this time, the battle had not worked in their favour.

She calls out to Vincent, hoarse, desperate, thinking only of the Townsfolk and what chaos might ensue with Galian's appearance. He gives no indication that he can hear her, though it is some small victory he does not choose to give chase to the retreating navy-suited duo, who had pivoted on their heels and sprinted off along the path that meandered through the forest.

She tried to blink away the stars that dance before her, courtesy of Reno's parting gift, grit and dirt pressing painfully into the heels of her palms and bloodied knees.

Satisfied for the moment her most immediate dangers were mitigated, she scrambled toward Cloud's motionless form. The back of his head is bloodied; he'd taken quite the knock, but he was breathing, and a poke elicited a deep grunt from his chest cavity. He'd recover.

Slumping against the neighboring tree, she watches Galian draw closer, apparently all interest lost in the Turks. It's nostrils flare, scenting the air, hulking form lowered to the ground in a much less domineering stance.

"Vincent…?" She calls softly, wondering if any reaction could be induced from him in his creature form at all. He doesn't react, instead lowering his snout to the forest floor, as if hunting for something. Her eyes widen as she realises it must have scented the blood issued from both she and Cloud in the scuffle.

He draws nearer, close enough that she could feel an almost unnatural heat emanating from his loins, and notice for the first time his hide was in fact coated in dense, glossy fur of the deepest amethyst shade. Short sharp snuffling exhales ruffle the hair on the back of Cloud's head, though she cannot see clearly what he is doing, Galian's hulking form blocking her view.

"He's fine, you know. Give him a minute and he'll come to," She rests a hand on what she can reach of Galian in the hope that the gesture will be familiar to him, encouraging Vincent to return to himself once more. Curious, her fingers twitch to explore the smoothness of his coat.

With a grunt, Galian turns to consider her. In spite of feeling, rather than knowing, that the danger had well and truly passed, she cannot suppress her instinct to back away slightly, palms pressed to the dirt, spine rigid against the tree trunk at her back, boots scrabbling for purchase.

He is imposing, Impressive and yet terrifying at all once. Gleaming golden irises consider her unblinkingly, a small female, knees drawn up before her body defensively. The black claws bracing him against the forest floor sink several inches deep into the dirt with no resistance.

"Vincent?" She offers once more. She doesn't know what to do and has even less of an idea on what to expect.

The nostrils flared again, seeking out the source of a different scent. Indeed, her knees are bleeding, and her burst lip is softly oozing still, staining most of the front of her crimson; Not to mention her arm guards had torn in several places, revealing a patchwork of nicks and scratches. What with the adrenaline still pumping, her wounds barely registered. Was this was he was seeking?

At the initial warm, wet sensation across one kneecap, she screams.

"Vincent! Stop it!" She is shocked and amused simultaneously. What a ridiculous scenario to find herself in, and with _him_ of all people...

Galian continues regardless, tending to her wounds dutifully with a velvety, cat-like tongue, a tingling sensation left behind in the wake of his ministrations. She wriggles away as best she can, a curiously pleasant thrill travelling from the back of her knees to the very pit of her abdomen. That part of her tended to, he seeks the source of the strongest scent.

"No," She breaths, a little giddy, clutching onto his horns in desperation. "You're going to need to learn to have boundaries, Mr Galian." She can hardly believe what she is saying- _Mr Galian?!_

"TIFA?!" Of course, Barrett _would_ dash in at this point, guns blazing. Galian swivels around, towering onto his hind legs before her and shielding her from view, a low growl emanating from his bellow-like lungs. "TIFA, DID THAT MONSTER HURT YOU?" She knows she must look a sight, covered in blood from her split lip, and cowering on the forest floor.

"No!" She scrambles as best she can to her feet, doing her best to move around the hulking form of Vincent. "It was Rude and Reno. We got ambushed."

"What happened to Cloud?!" Barrett jerks his head toward the blond prostrate on the floor, evidently still harboring suspicion at the situation he had stumbled upon. She could hardly blame him – there weren't really many ways to interpret finding them in their current predicament.

"He was knocked out by that damned nightstick and then Vincent—"

She is interrupted by a series of grunts, part human, part Galian, and relief floods her body. Finally.

She turns to assess Vincent's condition. Upon noting that he swayed upon his unstable limbs, she lurches forward, arms extended, despite being rather poorly provisioned to support anyone in her weakened state. As a consequence, they both end up on their knees, panting, caught off guard by the rather sudden proximity.

She scans his face with curious eyes. His cape still lying forgotten several feet away, she takes the moment to absorb the countenance of a man who, moments before, had been this close in the form of an eight-foot tall beast.

The forest is bathed in golden light; the sun hangs low in the autumn skies, an hour or so from sundown. His pupils shrink to an inky pinpoint, gilded flecks expanding in a sea of scarlet and amber and glinting beautifully.

A straight, thin nose with a small bump on the bridge- evidence of a break? - And a mouth, sensitive, fuller than she might have imagined. A sharp, angular jawline, marred slightly on one side by the thin slice of an infringing scar. She longs to follow it with her fingertip.

She is violating his space, taking advantage of his exposure, breaking all of the rules. Though it seems she is not the only one.

His eyes scan her face, devouring detail. She may have imagined it, though one moment she fancied his tongue darted out to wet his lips, as if wanting to recall her taste…

"I'm sorry, are you alright?" She hurtles herself back to smothering civility, getting to her feet and dusting herself down. She maintains the litany of babble, of expressed concerns for everyone's welfare whilst simultaneously updating Barrett and the others as to the whereabouts of the Turks.

In the rush, Vincent takes a moment to drape himself in his trademark trappings – cape and gauntlet – hoping that he can fade into the background.

Cloud, it seems, has finally come to, with much grumbling and shaking of his head. He reaches back a hand to seek his injury. "Ugh, why is my hair _wet_?"

Tifa is inconsolable for the next five minutes, laughing so hard tears stream down her cheeks.

-0-

She finds him later, in the relative comfort of the small inn their party had taken refuge in for the night. Vincent had established himself within an armchair at the rear of the inn's cozy, firelit drawing room, hidden behind a paperback. Grinding the toe of her boot into the rug beneath her, she seems rather at war with herself over something. She tugs at his curiosity.

"Vincent, may I… May I ask you something?"

He closes his book with a soft thump. "Of course." At his invitation, she perches on the edge of a low table before him, such that she is peering upward into his face.

"Do you… do you know what is going on- when you transform I mean?"

He considered her carefully, wondering at the origins of such a question. "I have very poor recollection of what transpires when I am in Galian's state," He says, paying close attention to her reactions to his words. "I remember only flashes of what he is feeling at the time."

"Oh."

He frowns.

"Why do you ask?" She blushes profusely under his scrutiny. When she offers no answer, he presses her further. "If I have acted in a manner that is… shameful I would have you tell me. You do me no service through keeping me ignorant of how I act under his influence."

"I think you have it the wrong way around," She replies softly, leaning in a little closer. "I think he is acting under _your_ influence."

"What was it that he did?" His mouth has gone rather dry.

Tifa peers at him demurely from beneath her eyelashes. "Well, he was ah... tending to my wounds. Or attempting to, anyway. I didn't think it was appropriate to let him fix everything, though he tried nonetheless." She points to the swollen flesh of her lip, healed over somewhat thanks to a salve, but still likely to be tender for a few days yet. At his look of confusion, she adds, "With his tongue."

Vincent has never felt so embarrassed in his life. His entire body is engulfed by a searing heat that he feels should brand him the same shade as his cloak, and he wishes for nothing more than for the earth to open up beneath him and swallow him whole. If Tifa is disgusted by him, she does not show it. Instead, she is considering him with barely contained amusement, though has the decency to look a little guilty about it.

"I…"

"It was not my intention to embarrass you," She reaches to touch his arm, and his skin smolders beneath her fingers. "Only to address certain… _ah_ , tensions existing between us."

"Tensions?" He finds it oddly refreshing, her candour, though wishes he could take it in much smaller doses. His gaze flits across the room. Blessedly, Barrett and Cid, sat together on the other side of the drawing room, have not shown interest in listening to their conversation, or demonstrated any notice toward their being there at all.

"I think you know what I mean."

He had been there, on his knees on the forest floor, close enough to count her freckles; to marvel at the different shades of amber and gold in her eyes; to wonder what her jaw would feel like, cupped in his palm, her wounded mouth beneath the pad of his thumb. He had suffered the intrusive thought, of cleaning the blood from her flesh with his tongue, onlookers be damned.

He knew what she meant.

Seated so close to her, he can take himself back to that moment now, if he lets himself. But he doesn't. He can't. She is so young, so alive, so real.

And he…

He is so broken. Old beyond his years. He isn't even human, some of the time.

How can he tell her this?

He must repeat it to himself, to stamp out the roots of a series of impulses that leads him from this room and into her bed. His fingers twitch in anticipation of flesh.

"I don't know what you mean." He lies, adopting a coldness of tone. The illusion of intimacy she had created with the leaning of her body dissipates in an instance, and although he should celebrate that distance between them is there to keep her safe, to protect himself, he regrets its loss. "Forgive me, I am in need of rest. I should retire to my room."

He does not wait for her to acknowledge him, instead sweeping from the room, forgotten paperback clutched in a steely grip.

-0-

Hours later, when she finally deems it late enough to retire, relaxed on account of the rather large glass of wine she had enjoyed, she trudges slowly up the stairs to the sleeping quarters, fingertips trailing along the bannister, a benign hum on her lips.

The landing is dimly lit and full of turns and angles, such that she did not notice him ensconced in a chair by the corner. She cupped the beginnings of her scream in her palm. "Vincent, what are you doing?! Did you get locked out of your room?"

The gunman looks a little abashed, if she is reading him right, having stood and made a conciliatory gesture in her direction upon him startling her. "No, I… I wanted to speak with you, before I retired for the night."

"I thought you retired hours ago," She remarks dryly, hiding her smirk as she busies herself with the lock to her room. The door creaks open, and she steps half inside, arm extended in invitation. He appears to hesitate, their discussion earlier weighing in on his assessment of the risks of entering her bedroom. "We don't have to linger in hallways. I presume you do not want Yuffie, or anyone else for that matter, overhearing what you want to say."

He cannot argue with that logic it seems, for he sweeps into the room decidedly, coming to rest stood at the foot of the neatly made bed. There are two in the room- of course, she was likely to be sharing with Aeries. He does not question her absence.

"Tifa… I wanted to… I wanted to apologise." He begins, unsurely.

"Apologise?" She repeats, leaning against the closed door to consider him. She had not switched on the electric lighting in the room, though the high moon bathes them in a cold, silvery wash.

"Yes. If my actions, conscious or otherwise have given you the impression that I… that I feel something for you other than comradery… I offer you my sincerest apology. I do not wish for us to embark on a journey under false pretenses."

She falls silent, and he wishes she would say something. He had thought carefully about each word he should use and how this conversation might play out. He had not factored in silence. He had not accounted for her trying to see through him, as she clearly was now, amber eyes trained carefully on the exposed parts of his face.

He resists every urge he feels; his hands remain relaxed at his sides, though the muscles of his left twitch, as they were wont to do when he was nervous; his gaze remains trained upon her face, unwavering, though he wishes for nothing more than to look away, so searing was her scrutiny in reply; he kept both feel planted firmly, stance certain and uncompromising.

He found it both impressive and profoundly irritating that she seemed so effortlessly proficient in her impassivity. She would have made an excellent Turk.

He decides that opening up a little to her, though not in a way she would expect, was the safest bet. The sooner she saw him for the monster that he was, the better.

"I decided to come with you – with Avalanche – for one reason. I want to find Hojo. And I want him dead. After that… my future is uncertain."

Finally, her expression shifts. Her heady gaze drops like a stone, her shoulders with it. "I see." There was no shame in her countenance, no trace of embarrassment at having misread him and his actions. Only sadness. He wrestles with an urge to take it all back, to beg her for forgiveness. He would never wish another to bear any part of his many burdens.

"Again, I am truly sorry." He knows he should leave now, mumble 'excuse me' and exit the room. Why should it matter how she felt? Why should he care? He was only here for one reason, wasn't he?

But Tifa had been right. She could read him as clearly as he did the pages of his book. He did care, and he cared deeply; about their welfare; about how they perceived him, as a monster or otherwise; and for her, this young woman, who was either incredibly brave or incredibly foolish – on this he had not yet decided – to cast aside every instinct a person should possess when faced with him as he was, to simply reach out and to give a damn.

He cannot leave the room without offering something, some form of olive branch, to her. All his cautiousness and carefully cultured interactions be damned, if he had to go through the days ahead alone – truly alone – he surely could not stand it.

"But…"

He hadn't planned for this part. He is certain she knows, that she recognizes he is torn in half. His body weight sways slightly from one foot to the other in his indecision, clenching then unclenching his left fist. Her gaze lifts, questioning, hopeful. This is what he is here for, why he has stayed. Hope.

Yet If her silence had perturbed him before, it near drove him to madness now.

"But I cannot in good conscious leave without telling you how… grateful I am for having had your friendship, these past months. It has been… a trying time, to say the least and I-"

He is halted in his rambling and fumbling by the dawning of a smile on her face. Damn it. She knows. She sees through all of it.

"I am being selfish, I know. I realise I may have embarrassed you, and I pray my apology is enough to mitigate for that. I hope you will forgive me and continue to grant me your friendship."

She opens her mouth to reply, to put him out of his misery, when a tap comes at the door.

"Tifa, are you in there? I don't have my key." Aeries. The brunette offers a sympathetic smile, before opening the door at her back to admit the Ancient. "Oh! Vincent I didn't know you were in here – should I…"

She motions to herself, asking if they require further time for their discussion. Her expression gives nothing away, though he has learned that the damned women of this group – Yuffie excluded – were capable of trickery of incredible magnitudes.

"I should be going. Tifa, I… I encourage you to think on what I have said." He is glad for the moonlight- surely it must wash him of all colour, disguising any evidence of the heat upon his cheeks at having gotten himself into this situation in the first place. He makes to exit via the door that Tifa hold open still, avoiding her gaze entirely as he slides past her.

She watches him leave, privately delighting in achieving several small, yet significant victories.

First, she had proven that Vincent possessed many more emotions in his repertoire, and had witnessed them expressed with none of the Vincent-applied filters.

Second, she steadfastly believed Vincent had felt something shift between them, kneeling bloodied and exhausted on the forest floor, regardless of his words otherwise.

Thirdly , and this could be evidenced by his own admission – he valued her as a friend.

"There is nothing to think about," She says gently, leaning out of the room to call after his retreating back. "Goodnight, Vincent."

-0-

 _A/N: Took me ages to finish this chapter... I fancied an embarrased Vincent for once._


	3. Itching

**A nice fat chapter for you today. Started a brand-new job on Monday, to where I will channel some of my creativity... but not all!**

 **-0-**

 **Itching** , _adj_. an irritating sensation of the skin; restlessness or the desire for adventure or activity; a longing or desire to do or possess something.

-0-

The rich indigo uniform scratched at her skin like hell, and she wondered how the soldiers could stand to wear them every day while on duty. She bore the suffering without much fidgeting – it was all in the interest of subterfuge, after all – and stuck to the plan, keeping watch on the upper deck of the cargo ship bound for Costa Del Sol.

It was encouraging to note, in the chaos, that Aeries, draped in an identical soldier's garb, was nearby. Vincent had subtly made himself known too, though she'd had to be a little less than subtle to identify herself to him in turn. After all, all the soldiers looked the same, faceless in their helmets.

"I don't know how you managed to get out of wearing one of _these_ damn things, "she grumbled in her itchy uniform, secretly savoring the rather delectable sight of Vincent in a dark blue, well-tailored suit, complete with black leather gloves, and matching black tie. Yes. Please.

"the opportunity came to ah, liberate, someone of it, and it's because," He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I am not quite as well-known as you are in these circles."

Of course, he was referring to Avalanche's core members, herself and Barrett largely, though Cloud and Aeries were arguably the more recognizable and notorious pair.

"What opportunity would that be, then?" she leans in, keen to know how exactly he ended up back in Turk garb. The fabric retained a certain familiar scent, and she noted that the jacket's breast pocket contained a pair of sunglasses.

"For revenge, of course." his ruby eyes glint a little. "I really did almost literally stumble into our bald friend. Rather a fish out of water he was, without the read head."

"You didn't?! Vincent is he-"

"Shhh!" he hushed her, ensuring they were not overhead. "Rude will live to see another day, I promise you. I merely relieved him of his uniform and left him with a small parting gift he may feel for a few days. After what he did to you I'd say he had it coming."

She smirked beneath her helmet, lifting the visor momentarily to make eye contact. "My hero!"

He admonished her for the small lapse of caution, though as he leaves her on the deck, excusing himself so that he can perform some reconnaissance in the passenger seating area as planned, he grants her a rare, shit-eating smirk.

"I saw that," Aeries mutters from beneath her visor, poking Tifa in the ribs with the blunt end of her rifle.

"I hope you've got the safety on," Tifa hisses in response, rubbing at the sore spot and immediately wishing she had not, for the fabric caused a renewed bout of itching. "And what are you talking about?"

"You're a total flirt, you know. And I don't buy his whole noble 'I just want your friendship' rubbish either." Tifa had given the Ancient a brief rundown of their conversation in Gongoga, omitting occasional details (such as Galian's action in the forest) to preserve Vincent's dignity as well as some of her own.

"We can discuss the finer points of Vincent in a suit at a later date – we should get back to posturing."

"Fine! You're no fun at all."

The levity of this moment was quickly forgotten as events unfolded, hundreds of miles out at sea. Yet it became a precious memory to return to; one of much simpler times.

-0-

So much blood. Vincent's guts turn to ice upon considering the broad, sinusoidal trail that spread before him, smearing most of the lower deck; as if the creature, or whatever it was, had simply absorbed all bodies in its wake, excreting the blood in a macabre slug trail.

Pushing such dark thoughts aside, he continues his reconnaissance, keeping his body low and in the shadow of the cargo crates in the hold.

He is in the lower deck, having overheard the distress messages being broadcast in the captain's cabin. He finds scenes of total carnage, and his heart leaps in his chest upon the discovery of each Shin-Ra solider corpse. With trembling fingers, he checks beneath the visor of each one, barely allowing himself to feel relief upon noting he recognized none of the visages of his comrades beneath them. Without any form of communication, he did not know the fates of any other members of Avalanche.

His search leads him to a section of the hold which stands in total carnage. A particularly hulking crate stands shattered in, sharp, jutting fragments, burst apart with some considerable force. The mangled, deceased bodies of a few soldiers and deckhands, clearly having been in the vicinity in the wrong time, or perhaps had been investigating a disturbance, lie discarded. He recognises the pattern in their final expressions, each man and woman wearing a fixed mask of horror, evidently the last sight they ever saw the very thing which sent them to oblivion. They all bore large, slice-wounds, inflicted by something much thicker than any sword.

A brief appraisal of the exploded crate leads him to no conclusions, other than whatever had been transported was intended to look like normal cargo; for within the unadorned wooden packing crate, a much more solid, metal sarcophagus lay, bearing upon its dull, brushed steel surface biohazard warnings, and a digital display. Whatever it had shown before, the readings now were blank. The metal had been torn as easily as paper.

He hears a sound several rows back in the cargo area and freezes, weapon drawn at the ready. He lowers it upon recognizing Cloud's trademark hair, clashing violently with the indigo uniform. He carried the helmet under his arm. "Vincent, it's you! Did you find anything?"

He jerks his head towards the wreckage he had previously been evaluating. "This appears to be the source of whoever- or whatever – got loose."

"I don't like this one bit." Cloud grumbles in reply, straightening up following a brief examination of the crate's contents. "We should go and find the others."

"You have not spoken with any of them?"

He nods, though the frown that creases his forehead doesn't dissipate fully. "I found Yuffie and Cait on my way down here. I told them to wait up top."

The twist in Vincent's gut tightens.

-0-

His relief at having discovered her alive is short-lived, for Tifa is asked to accompany Cloud to face the 'silver-haired man' that had been spotted onboard; a man whose footsteps they have been dogging since the Shin-Ra Building. They knew he was real – they had seen his handy work in the assassination of the president of Shin-Ra, had seen the corpse of the Midgar Zolom, skewered like it was no more than a mere worm on a fishing hook. But to face him, now, was madness, suicide even.

Perhaps thankfully, it seemed Sephiroth was not in the mood to fight, instead setting them against what had evidently been recently liberated from the cargo hold. Jenova.

The fight had been a trying one, though she came away unscathed, only sweat-dampened skin to show for her exertions.

Vincent hesitated briefly before approaching her, stood by the ship's edge and facing toward the approaching shoreline. Her eyes are closed, enjoying the warmth of the Costa sunshine beating down upon her skin, upper body shirked free of the itchy fabric of the soldier's uniform, letting the overalls gather at her waist. The helmet she gripped in her gloved fingers, moving it from one palm to the other absently.

It seemed they had given up on subterfuge for the time being.

Upon noticing his approach, she tucks the helmet under her arm.

"Well, things keep taking a turn for the worse," She remarks, wiping at an imaginary smudge upon the helmet's visor with her thumb. Worry clouds her visage. "I never thought I would see him again. I thought… I had hoped that all the signs… that it wasn't true."

Vincent can definitely relate to those feelings, though he says nothing on the subject. "We must face him, sooner or later."

"I thought you were only here for Hojo." Her smile returns, if a little uncertainly, and he is grateful, even if the mirth is at the expense of his discomfort.

"I…"

"Ha. Got you." She plucks at his lapel gently. "It's going to be a real shame, not seeing you in this get-up, you know? I have so many questions all of a sudden."

"Questions?" His tongue seems to thicken in his mouth. "What sort of questions?"

"Oh, plenty of sorts. But we should get ready to disembark. I don't want to hang around on this ship for another second."

On that, they were agreed.

-0-

They made for shore as soon as the ship docked, helmets donned once more to ensure they lost themselves in the disembarking crowds, usual apparel safely stashed in Shin-Ra issue duffel bags.

They do not linger in the port – indeed the heat was so intense they all naturally gravitated toward the shade offered by the side streets.

She felt grateful to be on land once more, her slightly wobbly knees thanking her for the stability in brought, yet in absence of a next step she feels exposed; their plan so far had only brought them as far as the deck of them ship.

Whilst it had been months since their number had had what could be called some down-time – or perhaps more appropriately given their recent journey, shore leave – she felt that recent events rendered it the worst timing ever for them to be resting on their laurels; sun, sand and sea be damned.

"I've never felt so disgustingly sweaty in my entire life," she complains to no-one in particular, though of course Vincent was in earshot, gratifying her comment with a laugh, coughed into his palm.

Aeries, de-helmeted and grinning, the sun beating down on her angelic features, skips ahead to draw level with Tifa. "There's a hostel up ahead. Cheap, but there'll be showers."

"You tease me," Tifa huffs, shucking her upper body back out of her disguise. "I have rather forgotten what luxury clean running water is."

"I do not tease!" Aeries adopts a falsely scandalised expression, before leaning in, whispering loudly behind her fingers. "I even managed to procure some soap. Will you be joining us for a shower, Mr Valentine?"

Vincent's expression of excruciating discomfort is priceless, unhindered by his usual cowl. Tifa howls with laughter, whilst an amused Cloud shakes his head upfront at the Ancient's teasing tongue. "She doesn't mean _together_. Unless..."

Vincent shakes his head, striding forward to level his steps with Cloud. "We should scout the area. There were many high-ranking Shin-Ra officials on-board – safely locked away from all the trouble, I might add – I should find out where they headed. It might turn up something useful to help us determine our next move."

The blonde nods, all previous amusement abandoned. "Good idea. Perhaps myself and a few of the others can join you. Tifa, Aeries, can I leave you with Yuffie? I fear she was rather... suffering back there. Some fresh air might do her good."

Of course, he was referring to the Ninja's trademark travel sickness.

"Of course. But we want to help-" Tifa's protest is cut across by Vincent.

"It's too dangerous for the both of you to be seen."

"I agree, but why does Cloud make for a less conspicuous recon partner than us?" She retorts.

"We don't have time for arguing. We shall sweep the area and reconvene in one hour. Besides," Vincent adopts a shadow of his earlier smirk, primarily for her benefit. "I thought you were looking forward to your shower?"

"Are you trying to say I stink?" She wrinkles her nose mockingly.

Their repartee had allowed for Cloud and Aeries to catch up with the rest of the group, leaving them lagging behind in the shade of a courtyard. His pupils dilate a little as he fixes her with an intense stare. Her insides reach boiling point, and for a moment, she imagined she had seen him run his tongue along a rather sharp canine.

She bites back her curiosity for the later date she had threatened him with, not aware that an opportunity would come rather a lot sooner than she had anticipated.

"We should get going. Just don't be mad if I use all the hot water."

-0-

She releases a long groan of relief as the stream of water hits her skin. All the unpleasant sensations of itching, stickiness and discomfort are forgotten in the wake of a good soaping and the shower's jet of clean, cool water. For a few moments at least, she allows herself to forget that not hours before, she had come face to face with Sephiroth again for the first time since Nibelheim.

Her relief, however, was destined to be short lived. Donning the loosest, floatiest item of clothing she had in her pack, she then sets about starting the arduous task of combing out her wet hair. Sat upon the edge of her bunk in the hostel, bare foot jiggling to a tune she hummed absently, her solitude is broken as a rather flustered Barett bursts in. She smirks upon noting he still wore the sailor suit.

"Have you heard of knocking?!" Aeries exclaims, peering around the edge of the bathroom door, wrapped in a towel. "We could have been naked or peeing for all you knew!"

Yuffie, meanwhile, slept through the whole ruckus, snoring gently in her bunk.

Barrett, it seems, has little time to be embarrassed. "Tif, we got a problem. Cloud radio'd to say they'd spotted Hojo on the beach. Vincent is on his way, 'n' He sounded real mad. I dunno, you seem to know 'im best."

She needs no further instruction, dropping her comb and grabbing for some shoes, and her fighting gloves, stomach filling with dread. The last thing they needed, she thought as she raced after Barrett out of the hostel, cutting through side streets toward the beach, was Vincent massacring Hojo on the beach, whether in human form or otherwise.

Her arrival preceded Vincent's by only a few moments. She releases a sigh, though does not let herself feel relief just yet.

"I don't know how we're going to get out of this one," Cloud grumbles, hand find the back of his neck as it often did when he was uncertain. She bid him to stay out of their way for now and, hoping she would not need to ask for his help in restraining the Ex-Turk, she turns to consider the challenge before her.

She has never seen rage like it, on Vincent, nor any man or woman for that matter; His jaw is pulled tight, eyes narrowed to a fine point, the crimson hues of his iris seem to gleam in his fury; he doesn't even acknowledge her presence, nor her gentle attempts to attract his attention.

Only her fingers, gripping his shoulders tightly, force him to tear his eyes away from his prey, oblivious to the danger he was in, lying several hundred yards away on a sun lounger, and inexplicably surrounded by women in skimpy swimsuits.

She has purposefully positioned herself directly between Hojo and Vincent, interrupting, as best she can in all her five-foot-four glory, his line of vision. His shoulders are rock-rigid beneath her fingers.

"Vincent, what are you thinking?" She asks firmly.

His brows, fixed into a deep-set angle of utmost loathing, twitch slightly. "I am thinking about all of the ways I want to hurt him _before_ I kill him." The vitriol in his tone almost causes her to recoil slightly, though she stands firm, feet planted solidly in a blocking stance.

"Is that really wise?"

"What?" He looks at her then, giving her his full attention.

"You can't hurt him here, not in front of all these people. There are children on this beach."

She gestures behind her, and Vincent's resolve seems to flicker upon noting that, indeed, she was correct. Small children, wearing bright swimming attire and sun hats, raced along the breakwater, tossing colourful beach balls to one another, or brandishing buckets and spades.

"I can take him somewhere no-one will hear him scream," He moves as if to push her aside with his left arm, bracing his palm on her hip, but she stands her ground, shucking off his touch and burrowing her fingers further into the flesh of his shoulders. She knows she is probably hurting him a little, but perhaps it would bring clarity to his hazy frame of mind.

" _No_! Shin-Ra would be all over us in seconds. We have to lay low for now, otherwise we'll never know what their next move is. _Please_ Vincent," Tifa decides she is not above begging. "We will find him one of these days, I promise you that. It may be weeks or even months from now, but when we do, I promise I will not stand in your way; You can do as you like. But for now, we just need to lay low. _Please_ come back with me."

He growls, a deep rumble that she feels reverberating in his chest and a war rages upon his face.

"Fine." He jerks free of her hold, turning his back to the beach and striding away with speed, as if he worries what he might do were he to linger.

Her relief is palpable. Cloud shares a look with her that says, _rather you than me,_ and she responds with a roll of her eyes and a face that says, _lucky me, eh?_

Not wanting to linger on the beach, and suddenly aware of the glaring sun burning her unprotected shoulders, she makes after Vincent, keen to ensure he does not renege on their agreement. He is headed in the direction of the hostel, thankfully.

Tifa wonders if she might find a little time later on, after all the intel gathering and preventing of public lynching, to walk on the beach and feel the sun-warmed, ocean-drenched sand between her toes. She is so lost in this thought that she does not notice Vincent has stopped in his tracks, and walks into his stationary back.

"Oof - Sorry, Vincent! What is it?" She wonders why he has suddenly halted, halfway from the beach and halfway to their accommodation, hoping to hell that he hasn't changed his mind.

He turns to her, moody expression still, though his shoulders are slumped in defeat. "I need a drink."

-0-

They choose a back-alley sort of bar, which suits her fine. Out of direct sunlight, though still with a terrace so they can see the comings and goings in the backstreets. Blessedly, it is empty. The whisky is cheap, she notes, though the glasses are clean and that is a good enough sign.

They sit in silence for a short while as the bartender clinks and rattles their order, so she takes the time to study him, to really look at a man she was rarely likely to see so exposed.

He had given up on the tie, somewhere between the beach and now, the top button of the crisp white shirt undone. He had tossed the jacket carelessly upon the seat beside him, right shirt sleeve rolled to the elbow. The left remains resolutely buttoned at the wrist. She wonders at that.

The red bandana that he habitually wears, to push back the swathes of ebony hair, is absent, and here in the quiet of the bar, with a ceiling fan revolving slowly to move the stuffy, soupy air around, a false promise of reprieve from the Costa midday sun, she notices a small scar at the apex of his forehead, disappearing into his hairline. The scar upon his jaw she had first noticed in the forest in Gongoga appears to dip beyond the rise of his collar.

With a heaving sigh, he presses the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, elbows upon the table before him, crown tilted towards her.

Instinctively, she reaches out to wrap her fingers around his wrists, gently prising them free. He raises his head, opening his hands so hers slide into his open, leather-encased palms.

"I know how you feel," She offers, running her thumbs over his knuckles.

There is flash of something – disbelief – in his eyes at her words, though he says nothing in response.

She lets her hands drop, folding them across her body.

"When I was sixteen, Solider came to my home town. I was excited – General Sephiroth was famous all over the world. I met him – posed for a photograph even – in the square in front of the mansion. He was everything I thought he would be; cool, aloof, tall, and so handsome... Not to mention scary, with that big sword of his..." Vincent notes that her fingers absently curl into her chest, between her breasts as she says this.

"Something went wrong after we reached the reactor. His mood seemed to shift, and for days he locked himself in the mansion, speaking with no-one. When he finally came out... he set fire to the village, and killed everyone who stood in his way. My father... he tried to stop him, and just like everyone else he... he cut him down."

Vincent opened his mouth to speak, to say some words of comfort, but found nothing suitable.

"I found my father's body lying beside Sephiroth's sword, discarded, as if it hadn't really mattered to him. Like my father was just a fly he swatted out of his way."

She pauses as the barman returns with their order; a bottle of whisky, some water, two glasses rattling with ice cubes. She pours the amber liquid over the ice, the silence filled with the pop and crack as the cubes contract.

"I've never wanted to kill someone before. I felt a rage unlike anything I've ever known consume me, from my toes to my fingers, and to the roots of my hair, even. I wanted to watch him die, slowly; I wanted to tear his limbs from his body with my bare hands."

She takes a sip of her drink, her gaze lowered to the surface of the table, where she swirls her finger through the ring of condensation her glass left.

"I almost died that day. And I learned the power of cold fury. Of biding my time. And of waiting."

"I did not know." He said quietly, reaching out to still her hand atop the table's surface. Her skin is cool beneath his left hand.

"Speaking of waiting…" She surveys his normally-gauntleted appendage with interest. "I've been curious for some time. Why _do_ you wear that thing?"

He shifts, a little uncomfortable.

"Keeping things close to your chest, huh?" she notes the withdrawal of his hand. "How about a little bit of a game?"

"What sort of game?" He considers her across the table, full whisky bottle dangling from her fingers in a tempting gesture, coy and in a position of power. He cannot help but entertain, with a small, internal smile at her ingenuity once again, that perhaps she had had this in mind all along.

She would have made an excellent Turk.

"All questions have answers. They don't have to be truths – they might be lies. We don't always want to tell the truth, and we have our reasons. The lie is the back door. But it comes with a risk. You tell a lie, and I call you out, you drink. The truth, however, can still remain unsaid. Or-"and she raises a cautionary palm. "Silence is always an answer. Automatic shot if you choose that option."

"Isn't silence telling?"

"It depends," She smiles coyly, filling each glass with practiced ease, making it up with a little water. "To lessen the peril," she says.

"Ladies first," He gives a small, ironic tilt of the head.

"Very well – let's start somewhere easy. Tell me about what it was like to wear the Turk suit. I want the juicy bits."

"Hm." He leans back in his seat, resting his arm along the back of the booth, apparently mulling over her question. "Well, I worked at Shin-Ra for two years as an administrative assistant before I got the position as a Turk. I excelled in training, completing the basic and advanced courses required to qualify for their ranks inside of a year – this is largely unheard of. Needless to say, being given the suit and wearing it for the first time? - It was a big moment for me."

A small smile quirks the corner of him mouth, his gaze focused somewhere else, another time even, perhaps. "There was a big party. Turk bar, up on the plate. I think it's still there now. I walked in, all new and untainted, eager to take on my first contracts... But for that night, I was the center of attention. Generally, Turks were people with an edge of mystery, or at least, they used to be. Turk bars were always, ah – _haunted_ – by ladies looking for a man with a little danger to his name."

"Sounds like it would have made getting lucky rather an easy task," She remarks, chin resting in her upturned palm.

"That it was. It got a bit boring after a while – doesn't that sound terrible? For some, it was perhaps the only perk of the job. Fighting, rather literally, against danger, with every contract and assignment... returning to something as familiar as the smoky bars and taking home a woman was a predictable comfort, a routine, when not on the job."

"And for you?"

"I... For a time, maybe. The shine rather quickly wore off." He leans forward, his attention once again upon her, and this moment. "You seem awfully interested in my previous life. Why is that?"

She chooses to take a shot – silence – but adds, coughing in the afterburn of the whisky, "Can interest simply not be enough? Why do you question my motivations?"

"Because I cannot possibly believe them." he replies, with a quirk of his brow.

"Is that because you doubt my better nature? Or because you believe yourself unworthy of them?"

He opens his mouth, and closes it, reaching in silence for the shot glass. "My silence is because I don't think I know the answer to that – I suppose that means I should even things up a little." Then, "I believe it is your question."

"Ok – where did you get this scar from?" She reaches out an index finger to gently trace the slightly shiny patch of skin by his left temple.

He smirks. "Bar fight."

"-and your nose?" Her thumb brushes the slight bump on the bridge.

"Same – but a different – bar fight. _He_ came away worse off, though."

"And this?" Her palm comes to cup his jaw, thumb stroking along the fine slice-like scar that bisects his jaw and streaks along his neck.

The smirk is gone. "Shotgun shrapnel."

The silence hangs. It _should_ be his question.

"And your gauntlet – why do you wear that, Vincent?"

He takes a shot, paying his toll for silence.

"Why aren't you afraid of me?" His exhale warms her palm, still in place at his jaw.

"You've given me no reason to be afraid."

"That's a lie – when I changed into Gallian the first time... you must have been."

She considers what he has said, and agrees that whilst she might have been afraid at the time – hence taking a shot in acquiescence – She no longer did. "I was. But I don't think you have it in you to uphold the scary front all the time. I think it's only there to prevent anyone getting closer. What I can't work out, though, is why?"

"I... I can't answer that."

"You can't or you won't?" She pours him his third shot, which he takes like bitter medicine.

"Won't." He wipes his mouth on the back of his palm. "What I want to know, is why you stopped me, back there on the beach?"

She tilts her head in consideration, while the ceiling fan whirs overhead. "All the reasons I stated earlier. And... I think you would regret it."

"Impossible."

"Revenge is a perfectly normal thing to crave, but to actually _get_ it? To execute a man, no matter how vile his crimes against you, without giving him the chance to fight back... it will take something from you that you will never get back."

He doesn't know how the temperature could drop so, in a place so humid, yet it does, in the wake of her words. "I am already a monster, Tifa. There is nothing further for me to lose."

"I don't believe that," She shakes her head vehemently, strands of hair tumbling about her beautiful, troubled face. "There is always something more that you can lose."

He stares at her, hard, as though she might burst into flame. "On the ship..." His voice almost fails him, all resistance fading away and leaving anguish behind, left hand trembling a little. His longed-for drink remains forgotten at his elbow. "Every Soldier's corpse I found… I knew you had been up on deck, but I could not shake the fear that I would find you… not anyone else beneath that helmet. I thought... if Sephiroth had gotten to you, before I could..."

It is her turn to fall into stunned silence.

So he did care; Part of her had always known that, truly, hence her earlier observations regarding his character. Yet, she had not considered where this could take her, could take them both.

"So killing Hojo was not just an act of revenge, but proof, if only to yourself, that you are unworthy of friendship?"

"Now it's my turn to say, I don't believe that, no."

"We should have set a punishment for denial, shouldn't we?" She attempts the joke, but it falls flat. Many things had been said, boundaries had been pushed. The dust was still up in the air, waiting for the breeze to die before it could settle once more.

"Either way, we are even. Let's take one for the road, shall we?"

They drink their final measure in cool silence.

All while the ceiling fan whirs overhead.

-0-


	4. Patterns

-0-

 **Patterns** , _noun_. A combination of qualities, acts, tendencies, forming a consistent or characteristic arrangement.

-0-

The evening draws in, bringing within much welcome reprieve from the oppressive heat. The ocean whispers cool air along the beach, the breeze buffeting in Tifa's ears as she jogs along the sand, under the light of the stars.

She had shaken off the fog of Whisky. Yuffie, somewhat recovered from her nausea had been suddenly ravenous and so Tifa had joined her to eat, grateful for a distraction and an excuse to soak up the alcohol in her stomach.

Not long after, having concluded their reconnaissance, Cloud and Barret announced that their journey would take them North the very next day. No rest for the wicked was to be had, it seemed.

The refrains of her earlier conversation with Vincent haunted the periphery of every benign thought. She was pushing him too hard, and in a direction he did not want to go in. He said he wanted her friendship, but he did not want to let down his walls. He said that she _should_ be afraid of him, despite him knowing she feared him not. He did not know if he was worthy of her friendship, and whatever else it came with, though they were, by her standards at least, friends.

Restless and profoundly discomfited, she tugged on some shorts and a vest top, neglecting any footwear for favor of running along the sand barefoot. Though the night was still warm, the firm sand, logged with water still after the receding tide, was cool underfoot. She jogged at a steady pace along the bay, reveling in the calm of its desertedness. The sun worshipers had lost their deity for the time being.

Tifa, it seemed, was the moon's only congregant tonight.

Turning when she reached the rocky outcrop jutting out into the ocean, truncating the stretch of golden sands, she then set her pace at a sprint, fingers pointed, elbows pumping at her sides as she raced back along the sand, retracing the trail of her own footprints. Halfway back, the lights of Costa's many bars and restaurants glimmering in the distance, she halts.

Ribs aching, lactic acid having built up in her intercostal muscles, chest heaving with labored breathing, and limbs slick with her exertions, she tosses herself down on the sand to recover. Arms thrown over her head, her knuckles brush the drier sand. Her ankles are kissed by the gentle lap of the waves. Overhead, stars wink.

Finally, her mind wandered freely of its previous prison, worrying and fretting over what had transpired, what was to come. Breath recovered, she releases a long, indulgent sigh, stretching indulgently.

She wonders how it would be to sleep here, beneath the stars. Perhaps she would wake with the tide coming in, splashing against the soles of her feet. She does not look forward to the bunk that awaits her back in the hostel.

"Were you planning on sleeping out here?" Someone voices her thoughts – Vincent.

She shoots upright, palms pressed flat to the sand. The suit is gone, replaced with his own uniform of black, though the cape, along with its cowl, remain auspiciously absent. He looks apologetic, hesitant even, though his fist his loosely balled.

She gestures toward the sand, inviting him to join her.

"I find that we are settling into a pattern, you and I," He begins, choosing each word carefully. She recognises that he is uncomfortable yet forces himself onward regardless.

"Oh?" She grinds her heels into the sand, finding the cooler layer underneath. She in conscious of her state of dishabille; sweaty, barely clothed, such was her consideration to remaining cool, sweat- dampened hair a tangle of sand and saltwater spray. She says nothing else, biting into the plump flesh of her bottom lip.

"I find myself humbled by your openness and honesty. You shame me, because I cannot be honest with myself about who... about what I am. But you... Please do not take my next words as patronising, for I mean only to speak well of you... For one so young, you are wise. Wiser than I could ever hope to be."

She laughs gently, running a hand through her hair. "I'm not wise, Vincent. I've just had a lot of experiences. Wisdom doesn't always come with that," She rubs at the goosebumps along the backs of her arms, suddenly formed. "My mother taught me to be honest but also to apologise quickly. Not necessarily related," She chuckles. "But in this case I suppose they are. I... I'm sorry, Vincent. I know I can be... intrusive. I never meant to upset you, I only thought... well, it doesn't matter now."

"No." He shakes his head, ebony tresses rippling in the moonlight. "I came here to apologise to you. I was... I do not know how to speak openly with you, sometimes. I... I fear what you might think of me. Of the man that I was- that I am."

"Vincent, we all have a past. We have all done things that we are perhaps ashamed of or wish we could have done differently. As much as we might not like it, we are defined by our choices. But we can choose to make amends. You are a good person – a worthy person. I do not think poorly of you."

"How can you say that? Knowing what I am. What I _become_." He stares at his hands, one gold and one flesh.

"The man you are," She begins, softly, reaching out to take his hands in her own. He holds his left hand- the one encased in metal and leather – stiffly, unwilling or unable to hold her slender fingers in return. "Is the sum of all of the things that you like, and dislike. All of the things that make you laugh and make you angry. The colours you favour, your favorite weather – Not Galian Beast. Not 'Being a Turk.'"

He looks doubtful.

"You like whisky, _and_ candy floss," her eyes glimmer, teasing him with the recollection of their rather listless exploration of the Gold Saucer, hating the entire experience. "You are simultaneously the most intimidating and yet caring person I know. You _hate_ it when Yuffie sings in the mornings; and you secretly loath tea, but cannot bring yourself to tell Cid, so you drink it anyway." She pauses, privately delighting in the unfiltered expression of bemused amazement he wears before her.

"You are still recovering from a trauma in your life. It will take time, and conscious effort to heal. I am here for you, Vincent: _no matter what_. No caveats."

The waves gently hiss and froth upon the sand at her feet, an aqueous metronome, marking the time that passed in silence.

"What scares me the most..." He falters, though a mute encouraging nod spurs him on. "It's... the thought of what happens after. When Hojo is dead and the reason, that I am telling myself, I put one foot in front of the other is gone... what then? Because the truth is, I know you're right. Revenge won't fix things. Revenge won't undo the damage that he did to my body, and my mind and... It won't bring Lucrecia back, or mean that Sephiroth was never born."

"We can only face things one struggle at a time, Vincent. And when we lose a reason to fight… we find another."

"what are your reasons for fighting?"

"I thought it was the right thing to do, at first." She wraps her arms tightly around her knees, making herself smaller. "I was never resolute on the morality of what we did in Midgar… but now I fight because someone is threatening to destroy everything I care about. Someone who already took people from once. I can't let him do it again. I don't want to be left alone…"

"you'll never be alone, Tifa. Too many people think well of you."

"That's… thanks, Vincent." She fidgets, grinding her heels deeper into the sand, gaze unfocused on the distance horizon out to sea.

"Why are you afraid of being alone?"

"who isn't?" her laugh is mirth less and cold. "Aside from having lost both my parents, and having no blood relations left to speak of… I've always been the accessory. The sidekick. I've never been the center of someone's universe. It's like I'll never lose this feeling of being on the outside; Cold, and wanting to be let in."

So, she wanted to be loved.

She is within his reach, and yet the distance between them could have been marathons and leagues. He was not the man she needed. He could not be the center of her world. She deserved so much more than he had to offer. In many ways, she was already the center of his small existence; a fact she remained, blissfully, oblivious to.

She sighs, in answer to herself, to fill the void of silence he did not choose to venture in. "I think we both know the odds are against me," She gets to her feet, takes a few steps so the waves lap to her ankles.

He joins her, a leather encased palm placed gently at the crease of her elbow.

"Whatever comes, we face it together. I… I wish you nothing but happiness."

She looks to him, face upturned and reflecting the moonlight. Her beauty steals away conscious thought for a moment. She is a goddess in monochrome, distraught, caged by fears and worries that have no right to tarnish one of such purity of heart. And he, creature that is, towering above her, black of soul and corrupted, dark to her light… he cannot free her from her torment, nor absolve her of her starvation of love; he can only pass her morsels through the bars of her prison.

-0-

 _Somewhere miles away, months ahead._

Always following, always a step behind.

Always too late.

That's all she could remember thinking, as the scene unfolded before her. The same sword. The same man. The same pain, the same anguish, the same nightmare.

The blade gleams in a long arc, always as she imagines it. He smirks, just like she pictures every time she replays the horror of her father's slaughter in her nightmares, terrible and yet beautiful; green eyes, feline-like, flash out of the gloom, glinting with malice. Perfect, white pearls, gleaming as his smirk broadens, stretches into a maniacal grin.

Except the dream doesn't end in her sitting bolt upright, bed sheets conspiring to tether her, twisted as they were about her ankles; breath hitching, battling to breathe through her dry, retching sobs; sweat slick upon her brow, coating her gooseflesh-dappled skin.

It's not her father. It's not her mother either (though not a causality Tifa laid at Sephiroth's door), conjured by her imagination, regardless, for her torment.

It's not a nightmare.

It's real.

Aeris. Beautiful, brave, and daring Aeris: The Cetra; The love interest (the love rival?); partner-in-crime (oh, what scrapes they had gotten into); the best friend, unquestioningly ignored love-triangle be damned.

The other night, Aeris had had a rather embarrassing dream - she was always so _funny_ , breezily making light of even the most riské subjects in a way that made Tifa envious. She was bold - hardened by a lifetime on the run from danger. She'd gotten so good at dancing away, and around it, until it became one big joke, just one more obstacle to circumnavigate. So trivial really, when you compared it with trying to save the world. Who were Shin-Ra to get in the way, when the greatest foe was out in the world at large?

But she's dead.

She's dead.

Dead.

Tifa feels a strange calm settle, as she kneels to bid her friend goodbye.

Tifa thought that Aeris was still smiling; her lips were softened, turned up slightly at the corners in that trademark, mischievous 'come do something morally beige with me, Tifa' way, simultaneously beautiful and innocent, only adding to the illusion of a sleeping fairy-tale princess. Beautiful, even in death. She could be sleeping, but for the rapidly cooling skin that tells of her departure from this world and into the next. The angry, red stain on the front of her pink dress shattered that illusion. No kiss bestowed upon her, by a prince, true love or otherwise, would bring her back to them.

There was so much she wanted to ask her. So much she still wanted to tell her.

But now, she had met her match in Sephiroth; A Grim Reaper, stealing away, one by one, the people Tifa cared the most about.

-0-

Being too late to venture onward in pursuit of Sephiroth and in the shadow of unfamiliar, mountainous terrain, they bed down once again to await the dawn.

Sequestered in her quarters, a well-preserved chamber with a stone slab adapted for her bed, she lies on her side, wide awake. Desperately, she hungers for sleep. The shroud of the darkness gave license to her fantasy of the evening's events having been a terrible, realistic nightmare. If only she could fall asleep, the dawn would welcome her and reveal that Aeris was in fact alive and well, perhaps in the room next door.

She would no doubt laugh at Tifa's anguished expression, enfold her in her arms, so Tifa could smell that unmistakable violet scent that always seemed to cling to Aeris' skin, and whisper in her ear not to be such a silly goose.

Though as sleep continued to evade her, her eyes bloodshot and raw from having lain for so long, tears pulsing gently down her cheeks, she knew her thoughts were fanciful. There was no waking from this nightmare.

A gentle tap comes at the door at her back. The wood whispers gently in the frame as it is slid open and is then closed once again. the slab of driftwood that functioned as a screen was sturdy and nowhere close to brittle, as she had expected. She does not turn to consider the entrant, clinging on desperately to the ever-dwindling hope that it would be _her_ , returned and well.

Someone seats themselves upon the make-shift bed beside her, before reclining alongside her. They are warm, solid at her back. Tentatively, they shift into place, slotting their body against hers, careful to be respectful. Their scent is masculine, musky, metallic.

"Vincent?"

He says nothing for a moment, only running his palm along her arm gently, coming to rest in the crease of her elbow.

"I didn't think you would want to be alone." He is hesitant, speaking in hushed tones, for presumably their companions slumbered (or didn't) around them. Silence seemed appropriate, in respect for what had just occurred, for what they had lost.

Unseen by him, her back to him as it was, and what with the curtain of her hair and the aid of the dark pre-dawn, her eyes close in gratitude, another silent tear falling, dislodged by her lashes. His warmth, the solid reality of his form, is grounding, comforting. The very fact that he recognised her need, that he was willing to offer it without having been asked, touches her the most. He was willing to expose himself to potential discomfort, for the reward of bringing her some reprieve from her grief, if not only a moment of solidarity.

"I can go if… if this is making you uncomfortable, or-"

"No." She cries thickly, her voice hindered from her hours of sobbing, raising herself up onto her elbow to entreat him to remain. "No, please…stay." _Stay, and hold me together, otherwise…_

His eyes find hers in the dark. "Whatever you need."

Gently, she lay back down, arms drawn across her body. She encourages contact, settling a little closer, reducing the gap between her shoulders and his chest. As before, the fingers of his flesh hand curl into the crook of her arm. In the stillness that resumes, she appreciates the gentle rise and fall of his chest at her back, his steady in breath, following by a slower, longer outbreath, lengthening as sleep approached. If she concentrated hard enough, she could feel - and count- the steady _thud-thuds_ of his heart in his ribcage, vibrations reverberating gently through his body.

She counts each breath, syncopating hers to echo those of her companion, til steadily, eventually, she feels the tug of sleep, allowing the shadowy realm of dreams to claim her for its own.

At her back, Vincent feels her breathing shift, dropping into the shallow pattern of sleep. He is relieved for what little rest she will gain. This would not be the last night she would battle insomnia – he should know.

It takes a further hour or so for him to be claimed by sleep – perhaps, if he cared to admit it to himself, he had somewhat lengthened that wakefulness on purpose – to enjoy the simple pleasure of a warm body against his own, regardless of the clandestine circumstances.

Who knew if he would ever be granted such an instance, again.

Morning crept upon the land once again, weak and watery light trickling through the windows.

 _Too soon._

Vincent is warm and comfortable, despite the rather hard surface which had been adapted for their bed. He had not suffered from nightmares for the first time in a long while, despite the horrors he had witnessed in the night. He wonders how much of it is courtesy of his companion, who slumbered on by his side.

At some point in the night, she must have turned over. Her face is buried in the crook of her arm, propped upon a rolled-up blanket for a makeshift pillow, forehead gently pressed against his shirt. Her knees abut with his, ankles entangled. Her right arm is between them, her fingers loosely clasping his.

He knows he should wake her. Cloud would undoubtedly be anxious to move on, in pursuit of Sephiroth, a new fire burning within him for revenge, for retribution. They had had precious few hours of sleep, yet even the longest slumber would have done little to restore them. The grief was still too near, the loss of Aeris to be keenly felt long after their hasty goodbye, at the side of the lake.

 _Too soon._

She had been taken from this world too soon.

With a sigh, he gently frees his hand, to sweep back the curtain of her hair from her face. Her expression was far from restful, though she appeared to still slumber deeply. He would give her more time, if he could.

Extracting himself carefully so as not to disturb her, he exits the room, sorry for the loss of her sleep-warm skin against him.

Cloud is already awake, seated in what must have been the dwelling's family living space. Though facing the door, he says or does nothing to indicate if he had noticed where Vincent had just issued from.

Vincent doesn't know what to say to him. He knows, from experience, that no words would do. He suffices with a gesture; a hand placed on a shoulder, a strong, yet brief grip. He hopes it says what he needs it to say.

The swordsman gives the briefest of nods, jaw set.

"We should be leaving soon."

"I expected as much," Vincent sighs. "I agree with your motivation for haste, however-" He pauses. It is not right for him to purport to speak on his comrade's behalf. "I feel that we must find time to rest. We haven't taken pause in many weeks."

"We don't have much choice."

A sound – a door opening – and they both turn. Tifa has emerged from her chamber. Pallid skin, puffy eyes – a perfect in-the-flesh example to support Vincent's argument – yet her posture is resolute, fists curled, resting on her hips, feet planted firmly. "We leave inside the hour."

There was no use in arguing with her, he could see. Vincent meets her gaze briefly, before he nods in assent.

-0-


	5. Reveal

-0-

 **Reveal,** _ **verb.**_ Make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others; cause or allow (something) to be seen.

-0-

The road north is gruelling, yes something else chafed at Vincent. Had been since the Forgotten City, before grief had taken centre point.

Their party, less one, suffer each step; up sharp inclines, down jagged, treacherous slopes; through wind, rain and ultimately, snow, without complaint, battered and bruised bodies pushed to the limit. Many an injury was brushed off, pain papered over with potions and heal spells. The cuts and scratches healed, but the ache of their bones persisted.

Vincent remained silent of his previous concerns for the time being. They had all cared for the Ancient dearly in their own way, their grief pushing them on, fuelling their weary steps. He chose to remain watchful, in particular of their elected leader.

It was not concern that spurred his watch, but suspicion.

He had seen Cloud reach for his sword. Had seen the blade tremble in his would-be-traitorous grip. Something drives Cloud forward. Something other than gut instinct, or a sense of direction. Vincent knew not if his hunch was founded, though he had long learned to respect them regardless.

The others would follow with him, and fight to the end.

Vincent just wasn't sure it would be against the foe they each expected.

-0-

Galian's roar seems to shake the ground beneath her feet, rage and anguish inducing visceral thrills of terror to pulse through her body, cramping her muscles, setting the tiny hairs across her skin on end, a tremor to begin at her knees and end with her chattering teeth. Her amygdala instructs her to run and not look back, yet she rooted her feet to the blood-soaked ground. She would not yield to her fear. Vincent (Galian, or no) was no danger to her.

Still, she repeats it a few more times, to reassure herself.

They had come across a small group of ShinRa Soldiers in the wilds of the pines, cobalt uniforms clearly visible against the snow. Separated from the rest of Avalanche, Tifa and Vincent were in possession of the upper hand, having come upon them as they did; The soldiers, it seemed, found themselves in similar circumstances; lost, separate from their unit, yet ignorant of their observers, arguing loudly about the correct course of action to take to correct their divergence amongst themselves.

Vincent met Tifa's gaze, communicating silently. Should they try and sneak around the soldiers, or try to take them by surprise? They were outnumbered; The soldiers numbered four with all but one armed, Vincent surmised from their vantage point, crouched behind a particularly robust pine which had gathered quite a tall snow drift. The paths forward or around led right through the eyeline of the soldiers. If they tried to sneak past, they too would likely be seen, poorly camouflaged against the terrain.

Waiting them out seemed out of the question also, for their poor clothing would not insulate them against the severe temperatures of the landscape. The weather promised gales, and further snow, if the air pressure and the colour of the skies could be believed. Vincent did not fancy their chances here for much longer.

A direct assault wasn't the best option they had, yet he saw it as their only choice.

As they readied themselves for their pre-emptive strike, circumstance cruelly intervened, throwing their plans into ruin. At that moment, a squirrel opted to cross overhead, dislodging snow from the branches. The resulting gentle thud of snowfall caught the attention of the bickering ShinRa unit. A tell-tale protrusion of red fabric was all they needed to see to confirm that they were being watched.

The snow drift, whilst excellent camouflage, made for a poor bullet shield – Vincent cried for Tifa to run for cover in one direction, whilst he drew the fire of the soldiers in the other. A few well-timed shots between the boughs took down one of their number with an audible cry. The return fire from his comrades, well-placed, ricocheted from a nearby trunk, showering Vincent in splinters.

He attempted to tune out the gun fire and the shouting, ears strained to determine how Tifa fared, across the clearing. Peering around the bough of a spruce earned him a bullet– only a graze across the top of his shoulder, yet he hissed with pain all the same. He was pinned in place, and only had a second or two to lean out from cover to fire, before barraged with return fire once more. This was not the strategic play he had been going for, yet the cards had been dealt. He must find a way out of it.

"Vincent!" Tifa yelled from across the way, her voice deadened in the snow, almost drowned out by gun-fire. "They're all armed. I 'm pinned down here!"

"I know!" He shouted back, gritting his teeth. "I can't get a clear shot!"

"Be caref- arghh!" Her sentence was truncated by a cry of pain – she had evidently taken a bullet.

"TIFA!" He yelled back, leaning out from the tree to spot the perfect window – the soldier who had evidently fired in the opposite direction had ducked behind a bough to reload – the angle was just right to deliver a perfect headshot.

Vincent didn't wait to watch his body slumped down into the snow with a soft _flump_ sound, ducking back around into cover.

What happened after that, was a blur.

He reloaded, before whirling free of the cover, and making a run, weapon ready to take down the remaining two soldiers.

Yet there were not only two. Vincent counted six, now.

A few ShinRa comrades, evidently separated from the earlier four, until the sound of gunfire alerted them to the presence of their colleagues, had rushed to join the fray. In the corner of his eye, Vincent spotted a flash of white – Tifa, stood with her back pressed to a domineering pine, a surface wound grazing her arm. Their eyes meet, and he knows – they both know – what's about to happen.

It had been the fastest transformation she'd ever seen; a blur of movement, red becoming purple such that she couldn't pinpoint the exact moment the transition occurred.

It may have been such that caught the remaining six off guard, resulting in a brief pause in the gunfire. It did not take long for it to resume however, once Galian's blur of movement stalled as he made his attack.

She didn't dare peek around, lest the errant gunfire that came whistling past to both her left and right claim purchase in her flesh, but she counted _so_ many shots; If the sounds Galian made were anything to go by, she'd wager a few bullets had found him amidst the fray.

The moment came when no more guns sounded. All that remained was the soft noise of snow falling, then landing upon the ground; the slow creak and groan of the pines as they swayed in time to unheard, ancient rhythms. Only then, did she dare come seek him out.

Gallian whirls around at the sound of her footfalls in the snow, muscles pulsing, barrel chest wider than the pine she lingered in the shadow of. She can see the extent of his injuries now; black fluid, slick like oil, streaks down his torso, spattering the perfect white of snow underfoot. Steam bellows from slick onyx nostrils, breath condensing in the sharp chill.

He is bleeding. A lot.

The corpses of their enemies lay around him, discarded. The once perfect white snow underfoot is no more, instead serving as a canvas for the brutal still-life of the battle's aftermath; Bullet shells, blood- _so much blood_ -, bodies splayed out with errantly placed limbs, sprays of pine needles, disturbed by the clash.

She reaches out a trembling palm, readying magic to heal the wounds shut that marred Galian's chest. She pauses. There were bullets still embedded deep within his skin. She would need to remove them before she could even think of healing the bullet holes over.

They were, by her reckoning, some distance from the cabin their party was headed for, courtesy of a map studied in the Inn. She did not know, separated as they were from the rest of the group on account of their rather splintered descent down the snow slopes, if anyone had made it ahead of them; or if they would find it first, cold and inhospitable.

Terrifying claws, part of giant, powerful paws glowed, shifting then melding into the impression of flesh, fingers, hands and feet once more. Dense fur coating a seemingly impenetrable hide became skin, fair and smooth. Horns disappeared, fearsome fangs withdrew, and there he was once again. Raven of hair, fair of face, tall, and pale…

His knees buckle.

Fingertips grip hard enough to leave bruises along his arms as she reaches out, like she had done all those weeks ago in Gongaga. She is not injured this time, and so they remain blissfully upright. He returns the grip, but to stabilise whom, she cannot say.

Trembling, Vincent releases his tight hold at her elbows, gently skimming his hands to her shoulders. She stands, frozen in place, skin erupting in tiny little bumps in the wake of his touch. The air seemed to vibrate, as his thumb grazes the underside of her throat, moving softly, slowly, along her jawline. His fingers are rough, touch gentle. Beneath their path, her skin ignites, breath catching in little hitches and tremors.

Her skin is like paper, her lips a perfect rose flush under the tracing of his thumb. He could break her, like this. So trusting. So strong and yet so, so fragile.

He grits his teeth. _Devour. Penetrate. Suck. Taste._

It is always intense like this, in the aftermath of Galian. Everything is so much more visceral. Every urge crude and yet so tempting. Yet somehow, until now, he had managed to keep it at bay; he'd never been this close, so utterly alone with her before, post-transformation or otherwise. His only thoughts were of her and how much he wanted to feel her against him, around him, underneath him...

He takes a deep breath, then another, and another, clarity ebbing gently at the periphery of his mind, returning in slow, gentle pulses. He fights every urge to press against her, inside her, burrow underneath her skin...until all that is left is shame.

He would not let her be defiled by his hands.

"Vincent," Her throat sticks, voice thick with fear-tinged desire. "You're bleeding."

He barely noticed. His body is slick with his own life's blood, his shirt shot through with holes and sticking to the clots.

"We need to reach the cabin and remove those bullets."

The implication of her words removes all those delirious, blasphemous thoughts from mind. She would see him. She would know. She would surely recoil from him...

He grunts, turning his back to her.

Plunging a hand underneath his shirt, he feels for the bullet wounds, discovering each with an ever-intensifying wince of pain. _One, two, three, four..._ Two by his right shoulder (those would need to be sorted immediately, for they rendered his shooting arm useless), another above his left hip bone, and the other was wedged in his left arm. Tearing his bloodied glove away with his teeth, he probed into the wounds in turn, breathing deeply through his nose to quash the waves of nausea. One bullet wasn't deep, but still, he could not prise it free. The others were buried within his flesh, would require medical implements that the wilderness would not furnish him with.

"Vincent, we need to move. There could be more of them." She is firm, orienting herself in the direction of the cabin. Her arm is a firm brace across his lower back, steering him forward. Each step jars with pain, takes more energy than it has any right to, battling against the resistance of the snow underfoot.

He understands he has been defeated. He knows he has no other choice. Though does his best to resist until the end.

-0-

The cabin is nestled behind a particularly dense copse of cedars, and as such, they almost missed it. By the end, he needed to lean on her somewhat, thus encumbering their steps. Blessedly, they do not encounter any more soldiers. Judging by the dark windows within the cabin, and the smokeless chimney, she does not believe anyone awaits them inside. Yet she proceeds with caution, taking temporary charge of Vincent's gun (much to his feeble protest) to scout the outside of the dwelling, ensuring it was neither stalked nor inhabited by anyone or anything unsavory.

She returns to collect him from his spot leaning against the porch.

The front door takes a little persuading to open – the dry wood, in need of a good varnishing, has swelled a little with the damp, and thus does not appear to want to come free of the frame. A few firm shoves with her hip forces it wide.

She takes only a few moments to appraise the interior before she shoos Vincent inside.

It is dry, or at least the central living area is. His nose tells him there's a leak – somewhere – perhaps a few holes had formed in the roof or upon the cabin's periphery which admitted, amongst other things, water, draughts, and small rodents.

The center of the room is dominated by large and open stone fireplace. It can be peered through to consider the room beyond it, and as such, when lit, would heat the entirety of the dwelling. Stacked high either side of the chimney breast was an assortment of logs, dried, fragrant, and ready to use. Perhaps the cabin was not to be considered abandoned after all, for it seemed when last occupied it had anticipated another visit.

Tifa hesitates to use it immediately, despite the bite of cold that threated to chatter teeth, fearing that the smoke would alert any remaining ShinRa in the area, were they unaware of the cabin's existence. It is not without risk being here as it is, but she has little choice when considering their circumstances.

Jerking into action, Tifa encourages Vincent to recline as best he can and remain still, while she searches through her supplies and rummages within the kitchen area of the small cabin in vain hope that she can pull together what she needs to treat her unwilling patient.

Blessedly, there is electricity. She does not stop to question how, instead busying herself with getting a kettle full of water to boiling, and locating a good light source to better illuminate the space, considering the approaching dark. As the kettle's element begins to groan and rumble to life, she darts around, drawing closed shutters and curtains to mask their presence here if possible, dead-bolting the door from the inside to prevent, or delay unwanted guests.

Vincent watches her flit about the rooms form his position reclined awkwardly, leaning against a reluctant armchair that didn't seen keen on supporting his weight. He feels weak, light headed, though he fights to stay alert. He wanted to do his best to dissuade her from her endeavor, gods be damned his urgent need for medical attention.

He only wishes, just for once in his life, for a doctor. Yet out here, at the foot of the Northern Crater and miles from any civilization, let alone a hospital, there are none. So, he must endure the humiliation, and the pain, before the one person he would rather not be present to witness them.

"Here we are," She reappears, slightly breathless, an ensemble of items gathered up in her arms. He notices – or rather remembers – that she also sustained an injury to her right arm in the fight. Remarking upon it, she brushes him off. "It was a scratch, that's all. It will heal. You, on the other hand…"

She kneels beside him, setting beside them a small reading lamp, which bursts into life when she plugs it in. "Sorry…" she mumbles in response to him shielding his eyes in the burst of light from the bulb, adjusting it so that it's beam was focused on his torso; her work area. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach.

The bright light her makeshift surgical lamp was not forgiving to Vincent's usual pallor, let alone as it was now, following the loss of so much blood; Lucid white, the tiny blue-tinged capillaries upon his eyelids visible under the glaring white. She watches with disturbed fascination as he screws his eyes shut, way before she is even ready to treat him.

"Vincent, are you comfortable in here?" She adjusts the armchair at his back, so that it is at least parallel to his back, her brow furrowed with concern.

In the near distance of the kitchen, the kettle froths madly, a harsh click noting that it had completed its task. "Not really."

"If you prefer we can do this in one of the bedrooms?" He almost raises a brow, an inert reflex caused by years of exposure to dirty jokes and double entendre.

"My preference has little to do with this, does it?" He remarks acidly, referring to her insistence that he be treated by her, and at once. He knows that she is right to insist. The bullets would not come out on their own.

She dignifies his comment with a half-amused, half exasperated shake of the head, before retreating to retrieve the kettle.

"It would help if you could remove your shirt. But don't worry if you can't. I can cut it away," She notes breezily as she returns with the hot water. He expected this, of course – how else would she remove the bullets? The inevitable moment hits hard nonetheless.

"I..." He wants to warn her. He wants to tell her – no, to beg her – not to look, to bear witness to the testaments of his torture and suffering. He didn't want the disgust, though he could understand it of anyone who would express it; No - most of all, he didn't want the pity.

"I can do it, don't worry. Although we might not be able to stitch it back together." She adopts a levity of tone, as if perhaps, without even looking at him, she knows what he is afraid of – probably does.

All things gathered, she assembled her tools before her would-be patient. Hands de-gloved and clean, she reaches for the buttons of his shirt. His eyes flicker closed, softly, defeated.

"I will be careful not to hurt you, as best I can," She intones softly. She has leaned in closer, to better see what she is unveiling. If he could recoil, he would have, yet as it was, his shoulders firmly wedged against that cantankerous armchair, body rendered immobile by injury, blood-loss and exhaustion, he can do little to move.

It takes until the fourth button or so, baring him to the navel, for her cool fingers to stay in their actions. He knew the light must have been unforgiving; not that he considered there were any ways of displaying favorably the ruin of his flesh. He keeps his eyes closed, swallowing a lump in his throat. His heart races all of a sudden, a rabbit heart. Her fingers resume in their task, if not a little shakily.

She finishes with the unbuttoning, doing her best to peel the fabric away from the wounded areas, and where it wasn't possible, she cut away the edges with the sharp blade of his boot knife. He does not move, save for wincing a little as she parts the flesh a little around a particular bullet wound, to better view how deeply the bullet was lodged.

They fall into loaded silence for a short time as she carefully cleaned his flesh, gentle around the wounds, as much as she could.

"You might want a shot or two of this," She produced a small bottle of something – brandy?- for him, enough for perhaps four or five shots at least. "It'll help with the pain."

At first it makes him sleepy, but as she begins her extractions, peppered with much cursing from both parties and murmured apologies from her when she induced him to wince or groan, it simply dulls his senses.

When she is finished, she helps to maneuver him into a clean, cotton long-sleeve. He doesn't know where she got it from, but it seems to fit well enough. It's soft, and smells freshly laundered.

Suddenly – and he doesn't know when it happened, for he must have fallen asleep – there is a small fire crackling in the hearth. He didn't realise how cold he had been.

He is reclined fully now, having evidently been menouvred into a more comfortable position. His back is protected from both the chill and the unforgiving hard of the wooden floor by a stack of folded blanketsm a pillow propping up his head.

The silence, punctuated only by the pop and crackle of the fire, is soothing, and he almost drifts off again until he wonders at the location of his companion.

A shift of fabric somewhere to his right confirms she had not been far from his side, after all.

She is kneeling beside him, glowing pink – was that the scent of soap he could detect? – and smiling, dressed in clean, and weather appropriate garments.

"Awake so soon, are you? We should both really get some rest. Here, let me just finish up…"

She leans closer, enveloping him with her scent – yes, she had taken a bath. So there was hot water, then. Her palms press firmly on his chest, warming to a near-uncomfortable searing heat. The warmth spreads as some hundred of tiny, invisible tendrils, reinvigorating every cell in his body, turning the tender, angry flesh of his bullet holes into newly healed, pink welts that would fade in a matter of days. The light it generates, in absence of that harsh lamp, suffuses the dark of the cabin with a warming, jade glow.

He can no longer take it, unable to leave it unsaid.

"Aren't you going to ask about them?"

"About what, Vincent?" She replies softly, perches on the little step before the hearth, drawn to the cathartic, comforting heat of the fire.

"My… my scars."

"What about them?" She tightens her jaw. "If I had known…" She begins, voice cold with something he recognizes as fury.

"I… I didn't want you to see me like this."

She is wearing an odd expression now, one of hesitancy, and reservation, as if torn between two extremes. Her foot begins to gently tap on the wooden boards, and she worries her bottom lip.

"You're not the only one with scars, Vincent." Now, a sigh, angry again. "If you had told me before Costa Del Sol, I would have… I would have helped you take that bastard somewhere quiet."

"You were… right. It wasn't the right time." He acquiesces. "I did everything I could to keep it from you – from you all. I didn't want the pity. Or… to give you any other reason to fear, or be repulsed by me."

"I suppose now I've seen everything." A statement that held within it hope – hope that the extent of his suffering went no further.

"Not everything." He sheepishly raises his left hand, encased in gold-coated steel.

She blinks a few times, hardly daring to believe that it seemed her unanswered curiosity of weeks if not months past was in reach of being sated. He was feeling brave; perhaps it was the shots of brandy, or the lingering effects of the adrenaline from their earlier skirmish. His right fingers makes light work of the clasps and buckles at his wrists, braced across his forearm and at his elbow, keeping the gauntlet in place. It is a relief to remove it – the glove had been wet beneath, and, now he came to think of it, his fingers were stiffened with cold and disuse.

With a strange sense of catharsis, he removes the glove also, revealing his left hand to her for the first time. It trembles, as it usually does, the ulnar nerve especially suffering from the damage of experimentation, such that his ring and little finger would twitch and shake independently of the others. The pale skin is peppered with the tracings of scars – incisions across his palms, from and back, tracing along the outside of his fingers to the first knuckle. The marks had been tattooed over in black lines. At the centre of the back of his hand, a word in black is stark against the pallor of his skin: FAILURE. Turning his palm over in her hands, the heart of the palm bears an angry burn-like scar.

"I don't think you're a failure, Vincent." She says, very softly, slowly, tracing her fingertips across the inside of his palm. The contact is gentle, soothing – so tender, that his breath catches a little in his throat. He hadn't expected this.

She was always careful to conceal her studies of him. And he was always careful to conceal his awareness of it. At times, her gaze would softly glide across the surface of his skin like water droplets, when his back was turned, or if she felt sure enough he was not aware of her presence.

But there was no concealment taking place, here. She is seated not inches from him, studying him so openly and with such intensity he fights to catch his breath (though he is able to disguise it at recovery from his rather unbidden bout of laughter). It strips away all pretence, guardedness, and subtlety in its wake.

"Next," She said, still tracing shapes in the heart of his palm, sending pleasant thrills along his spine. "You're going to tell me you're covered in scales".

It starts small at first, though when their eyes meet, and for a fleeting moment a flash of horror flits across her features, as if she had in fact stumbled across the true source of his urge to remain hidden from her view, he laughs so hard his sides hurt, tears rolling down his face. Tifa giggles at his side, hands over her mouth as she delighted in the aesthetic effect of laughter upon Vincent's visage. He looked like a different person. There were wrinkles on his nose; she'd never appreciated how straight his teeth were. She wishes she knew how to give him this – this unencumbered happiness.

She wishes he would allow her to.

"No scales." He says, wiping his eyes with the heel of his hand.

"No tail?"

"Absolutely not." His shoulders tremor, the urge to laugh still threatening. "Only when I'm Galian."

"And nothing is missing – you don't have a peg leg do you?"

He scoffs a little, even though the action gives him some discomfort. He was still healing, underneath. Still would be, he expected, for some time to come.

"There's nothing missing, that I haven't noticed, anyway." He rolls his eyes. "Who knows what he took out of me when he cut me open."

"Nothing you seem to be missing, evidently."

"I suppose so."

They remain quiet for a moment, occasionally either one of them giving a gentle giggle from time to time, as the giddiness subsides. "Thank you, Vincent. I haven't had cause to laugh like that – to laugh at all – not since… Aeris always used to know how to make me laugh like that. She'd do these hilarious impressions."

"Oh really? I'd have liked to have seen that. Did she ever do impressions of me?"

"Oh yes, regularly." She winks. "Her Cid was particularly accurate, too."

Silence settles again, leaving space for her to formulate the question she had been wanting to ask since Gongaga, reignited by the occurrence in the forest.

"Vincent, I-"

At that moment, a sudden thud comes at the door, as if perhaps someone had thrown some of their weight against it, making then both give a rather violent start. Vincent's expression turns serious once more, regloving his hand before reaching for his gun.

The steel handle gives an awful, rusty squeal as it is manipulated from the outside to no effect.

"Barret- gonna need you to blast open this fuckin' door - My nuts are about to freeze off if I don' get inside soon." Cid's voice comes rather loudly from the other side of the locked door. Barret's gruff reply, uttered from some distance, was discernable.

Vincent smirks, getting to his feet and crossing toward the door softly, such that Cid would not notice his approach.

"Well tell fuckin' spiky head to hurry his ass up, otherwise I'm gunna be thawin' in front of the fire and I ain't make room for no-one."

Vincent unlocks the door, giving a vicious tug so it opens rather suddenly, admitting, inelegantly, in a flail of limbs and cigarette smoke, a rather confused pilot.

"Don't you think it wise to determine if this cabin was empty before you started to shout your mouth off outside the front door, Cid?" Vincent remarks dryly, making a show of holstering his weapon to highlight he had had it drawn at the ready.

Cid picks himself up from the dusty floorboards, beating his clothes down as he does so. Remarkably, the cigarette he was smoking is still safely pinched between his lips. "Don' be a fuckin' smartass, Turk. I could hear Tifa gigglin' from half a mile away."

Vincent managed to give Cid his best, _I don't know what you're talking about_ look, though the pilot returns it with a _yeah right_ expression that leaves Tifa wondering what information the Pilot knew – or indeed presumed to know.

"If that is the case, why would you not request that we open it, from the inside?" Tifa asks, tilting her head to one side condescendingly.

"Shut-urrrrp." He blustered in response, caught out.

Soon, the rest of what remained of Avalanche were gathered in the cabin; huddled about the fire, drying clothing, easing aching limbs, and tending to minor ailments. It seemed only Tifa and Vincent had encountered ShinRa soldiers. They made sure to inform their teammates, such that overnight a watch could be established, lest their shelter be compromised; yet a silent agreement was reached between them to keep the extend of the injuries Vincent had sustained, to themselves.

Later, as she drifts into a slumber that would be the best she would get in a long while, she wonders when she might find an opportunity to ask Vincent what she really wanted to know, most of all.


	6. Vessel

**Vessel.** _noun._ Someone or something empty, regarded as a holder or receiver of something, especially something nonmaterial.

 **-0-**

Their depleted company blundered on toward an uncertain future; a literal as well as a figurative fog obscuring what awaited them within the Northern Crater. They blindly continued to follow the path fate had unfurled for them, beginning at the Forgotten City and ending at a destination or circumstance, as yet, unknown.

Had they known what concealed itself there, they may have altered their course but, alas, fate was fickle, jealously guarding her secrets from the unsuspecting and unwilling actors in her tableau.

Weary to the bone, hungry and _freezing_ , worn down by grief, Tifa does not have a moment to spare to acknowledge her surroundings. Had that luxury been available to her, the environment provided little by way of visual stimulation nor was it worthy of appreciation: for if this was the Promised Land, then Tifa felt it was a poor promise indeed.

Desolate and windswept, craggy barren rocks jutted from the terrain in irregular, jagged peaks. Ground was uneven underfoot, sharp, porous rocks worn away to a roughened, abrasive pumice that promised to tear skin and break bones, with larger holes eroded over time by imprisoned pools of rain that threatened to twist or break ankles of unsure-of-foot travelers.

The severe lack of vegetation but for the occasional desperate, brittle grasses that found purchase in cracks and crevices, possessing the audacity to survive if little else, made a poor attempt to dissuade them that this was anything but a barren wasteland, incapable and unwilling of supporting life.

No light source was evidenced by sight, yet the very air was suffused with a sickly, dull glow. Tifa remembered a story as a child where a brilliant city, so bright and green, was naught but an illusion; its signature hue token of emerald-tinted goggles. No such brilliant lenses were applied here, however; the acidic tinge murmured in the fog choking the steep, craggy rise that surrounded the crater.

Dante had clearly not visited here: the true vision of Hell.

-0-

 _Confusion, terror, escape._

Rocks tumbling, the earth trembling, rent apart...

Yet the silence that came after was worse.

 _Everything hurts._

Her head felt like it had been cracked open.

 _It had been the plan all along._

They were _supposed_ to go to the Temple to fetch the Materia.

They were _supposed_ to take it to _him_.

' _Our purpose is to carry the Black Materia to our master. Those who carry Jenova's cells…_ '

 _Cloud_ was _supposed_ to give it to _him_.

And now he was...

Gone?

-0-

She plummets through one nightmarescape to another; she was compelled to hold a viewmaster up to her eyes and cycle through images that replayed her worst memories and fears.

 _Mom, Papa, Aeris, Cloud, Marlene, Barret, Vincent... Dead. All of them, dead._

 _So much pain_.

Thirteen, her mother dead. Sixteen, kneeling beside the corpse of her father, the cold steel of masamune alien in her grip. Days ago, kneeling, Aeris's cheek cool beneath her fingertips as she brushes aside ashen waves from her beautiful face for the last time.

 _Who is that?_

Someone is crying; hitching, short and sharp inhales followed by long, drawn out sobs.

 _Oh_.

The sounds she heard were coming from her.

Sensation returns all at once – her limbs ache and seem to weigh beyond their measure; her back is pressing against something unforgivingly hard and cold. Her cranium feels split apart, the barely present light levels that suffused the gloom of her surroundings are painful stimuli.

Her fists curl.

 _A low hum, gentle swaying around her._

She remembers where she is.

Devastation reigned. Grief tore at her lungs and constricted her throat in the rare moments she was sentient enough to remember that she _could_ breathe.

A few breaths to steady her sobbing, and she again passes back into the unforgiving dark.

-0-

The deadly perfume of the gas chamber stubbornly clung to her clothing.

Heart still pounding from the adrenaline, she leans over the railing of the commandeered airship, watching as Junon shrinks to a speck on the horizon until she could no longer make out it's battlements or signature cannon. Against all odds, their party make it out amidst all the chaos caused by Weapon.

Yet, as exhilarating as freedom was, she struggled to bring herself back to the moment. As the gas that would have ended her life dissipated to the wind, so had her purpose.

Cloud seemed to always know where they were to go next. She had mistaken it for confidence then, or blind luck at best, Now, she knew that all along, invisible strings had plucked at their limbs and danced and jerked their bodies along to the beat of a tune they could not hear.

Now, her strings had been severed, leaving her limp limbs dangling pathetically at her sides.

And yet, as the events unfurled in Mideel and Cloud was returned to her, she wondered if strings lingered still; was it a new puppet master, a more cruel one perhaps, who wished her only to suffer and watch over the shell of Cloud, his mind seemingly absent of any memory or vestiges of the person he was, or whose mask he wore? Or perhaps the path she must walk was hidden from her view?

-0-

Her lungs filled with Lifestream. Fingers aching, she desperately clung on to Cloud as they sank deeper and deeper, the vaporous green light becoming blinding white, before it then all went black.

-0-

"I have something to say."

They all turn, alarmed, to face Vincent, who had spoken up from his end of the conference room table, aboard the good ship The Highwind. Tifa had a feeling she wouldn't like it, whatever it was.

He stands, leaning forward with metal-encased fingers splayed atop the table's shiny mahogany surface.

"I don't know who you are. If we can trust you."

A murmur bubbled up around the table; disbelief at the audacity perhaps, but neither challenging nor supporting him. There had been skeptical voices of Cloud's choices along the way to this moment. There had been support where no true opposition or alternative was presented.

Vincent knew what he had to say may not win him popularity, yet silence and passivity had been his undoing once. He did not wish it on another. His gaze was like iron, unbending, will set firmly on saying his piece.

"You're at war with yourself. You have no control. I saw you in the Ancient City and we all saw you give the Black Materia to Sephiroth in the crater. Now, we have Meteor to contend with."

The murmur turns slightly angry at this, like a disturbed bee's nest. He ignores it. "I'm pleased that you've gotten to the bottom of your identity crisis, however in all of your speeches you failed to tell us what you really are. Hojo… he called you a puppet. What does he mean by that, Cloud?"

"Cloud would never hurt Aeris, Vincent," softly spoken from his left.

Tifa; appeaser and peace maker. The one wanting everything to just be fine again, now that Cloud was alive and apparently whole. He screws his eyes shut for a moment.

Whatever he said next would likely hurt her, may even damage their friendship. He'd long decided that her wellbeing, and this mission overall, was more important than hurt feelings.

Maybe it would be for the best, should she decide to distance herself from him.

"Cloud might not. But whoever, or whatever it is that has control over Cloud would. How do we know it won't be one of us, next?"

Cloud, throughout this exchange, is silent. His chin is lowered, cerulean gaze trained upon the reflection of the electric lights in the table's surface.

"I don't have answers." He shakes his head now, the peaks of his blonde hair catching the light. "I wish I did. It's something to do with the cells. The S-Cells, or -"

She burst into the conversation a few moments late, as if she's been gathering her courage.

"-Couldn't we have said the same about you, Vincent?" Tifa's voice is firmer now. Angry.

Vincent turns to her now, to look into the face of her fury. Her cheeks are flushes red, and though she knows the dangerous ground she treads, her jaw is set and fists clenched.

"Yes." He sighs, resignedly. She is caught off guard by _that_. "Yes you could. And you absolutely should, as I have been telling you." She flushes a little at that, though her gaze doesn't waver. "I'm a danger to you all, as Galian. You are wise to consider me with suspicion."

She gets to her feet, the chair she had been using sent rolling backward into the nearby wall with a clatter.

"If it's all the same to everyone else, I'd like to have this debate with Vincent alone and address his _concerns_ directly."

She is furious. He'd never seen her like this, and in no measure had she directed any measure of vitriol towards him.

"Tifa…" Cloud starts to protest, but she waves him off.

"If anyone else feels as strongly as Vincent does, then we can reconvene this conversation."

There is a low rumble of impassivity, followed by a staccato of scrapes and squeaks as the chairs of each of the party members are pushed back to allow them to exit. The boardroom door creaks then slams shut with finality, leaving Tifa and Vincent squaring off against one another within a bubble of pressing silence.

"What is the meaning of this?"

"I should as you the same question, Vincent." She grinds out from between clenched teeth.

"Are you truly convinced of his stability? Did you not see—"

"Of course I fucking _saw_ , Vincent. I'm not blind. We all saw the same things in the crater."

"Then why, tell me, are you so desperate to believe that things are all back to normal? Are you so naïve?"

"Don't you _dare_." She practically spits venom, glaring up and into his face without flinching. "Don't you dare try to pretend that you even understand what it's been like for me."

"I think I can make some reasonable assumptions," He finds himself returning her anger with such ferocity that he almost recoils. He doesn't know where it comes from, before it is spewing from his lips like such similar poison as left hers. "The boy you loved as a child is dead. He left the village and never came back. It's hardly a fairy tale, is it? You went along with his world view because it was easier; more convenient than telling him what he thought about himself and everything he stood for, everything that made him who he thought he was, was a _lie_. You'd rather he was a hurriedly, poorly built reconstruction than parts of fractured whole."

Her fists are so tightly clenched, he believes fully that she could punch him anytime between now and his next sentence.

"Of course, that's what I did. I'm not proud of it. But I'd rather he had some sense of self about him, even if it's not his own, than be a shadow of man, and wear the horrors of his past around his neck, like someone else I know."

He scoffs, shaking his head, ebony tresses falling into his eyes.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Vincent, I'm trying to make you see that I think you're ridiculous; standing here in front of everyone, declaring yourself a danger to us all. I don't know what you hope to achieve? If I didn't know you better I'd have thought you wanted to discredit Cloud, make him appear weak, or... I just don't get it."

"I want you to realise that you've never been in as much danger as you are in now, trusting him. Trusting me."

She blinks slowly, unsure how to process his words. "You've always maintained that you are a danger to me. We've fought side by side, Galian and I, and he has never once harmed me, or lead me to believe that I was at risk of harm."

"Don't tell me you really believe those words."

She hesitates. Sure, those early days couldn't be described as any less than terrifying, but that was at a time when she did not know him as she did now. And yet, she cannot force herself to meet his gaze now.

"I don't want to have to say anything further on this subject," His voice is low, barely controlled, fists clenching and unclenching as he wrestled with his inner tumult. "But maybe, if that's what it takes... If you only _knew_... you'd never have insisted we be friends. You'd never have remained alone in a room with me for one second."

"Vincent, I'm not a fool." Her chin is downturned, and he'd give every gil on the planet to know what she was thinking. She is purposefully hiding behind the curtain of her hair such that he cannot discern any clues in her expression. The tiny droplets of water that gleam upon the mahogany of the table startle him.

She gathers a breath, then tosses her hair out of her face with irritation. The motion loses more tears. Upon her cheeks they clung desperately, as the night's chill clings to morning. The gloomy halogen lighting sapping her skin of its usual warm pallor.

"I wasn't born yesterday. I know what it means for someone to... to look at me, like you do, sometimes. It's in my nature to call it out, as I did all those months back at the inn- where, as I recall, it was you, not I, that insisted on friendship. I wasn't... averse to the idea of your attraction to me. I felt it too."

"Tifa, this isn't what I meant. This isn't about me and you..."

"I know that Vincent, I'm getting to it – I knew that there was something more to it. It wasn't just something as simple as attraction. It's... I'm completely and utterly at your mercy."

He opens and closes his mouth, at loss for words.

The raw pull of his urge towards her when he became himself once more after Galian was what she was describing, of course. A yearning so powerful that he barely had it in him to breathe, such was the demand it made of his focus. It took all his restraint and power to centre himself, and retain even a shred, a modicum of self-control.

Her body shifts, the harsh angles that protect hers from exposure soften, unfurling to him as a flower does to the sun. Fingers unfurl from fists, arms fall slack, her chin lifts. She centres her weight across both feet, hip no longer jutted. Her fingertips rest atop the surface, arched, inching a little closer to where his white knuckles grip.

He knows what she is doing, even if she does not, and as always, he can do little to resist even the consideration of giving into temptation.

Their fingertips kiss softly.

"We are both broken. We have both done things we are not able to take back. Both twisted and bitter from revenge unsatisfied."

"You're wrong about one thing..." He says with a soft shake of his head, unable to suppress the tremor of electricity he feels travel across his flesh at her touch. "I am the one who is totally and utterly at your mercy."

"Is it... is it so wrong to consider giving in?" Their fingers overlap and interlace atop the table's surface. He doesn't move closer, yet for the moment he does not withdraw, which is a victory.

Vincent had never worn an expression so open as now; emotion waged war. He appeared to be teetering on the edge of something wonderful; giving in to his desire to reach out and touch her, claim her mouth and her body desperately and drink her in as a dying man consumes a philter of life. Yet this desire was wrought with fear, of severe, life altering consequences.

"I won't risk you. Ever." His voice breaks.

The cool air that fills the space he leaves behind is a punch to her stomach.

-0-

Grand Materia – _It could be anywhere_ , Cloud said.

 _Anywhere indeed_ , Vincent grumbled to himself, as they trudge in splinter groups across the continent, seeking out concentrations of Mako. The readings from the ship had provided them with at least a more targeted approach than Cloud's first indications. _Just try caves_ , given the vast number their group had circumnavigated over the months of their journey, seemed a rather ridiculous endeavour.

Consulting the map, Vincent notes that there are a number of locations in their vicinity, yet it would still take a number of days of walking to reach them in turn – that was, of course, not factoring in the time that the exploration would take.

He remains silent with his complaints this time, however. He knew when to choose his battles.

"Anyone else think this is a fuckin' waste of time?" Cid grumbled, leaning against a tree trunk whilst he shook gravel out of his left boot. "Searchin' caves across the continent for Materia we don't even know exists..."

"You won't get any complaint from me." Vincent remarked dryly, consulting the map and re-checking the compass. They were headed in the right direction at least for a cave by a waterfall, if the topographical charts on the Highwind were to be believed.

"Oh yeah? After Tifa handed you your own arse on a plate!" Cid pinched the cigarette between gloved fingers and exhaling smoke in a staccato as he chuckled.

"Doesn't mean he weren't wrong." Barett admits gruffly from Vincent's left, offering what he interpreted as a half-apologetic glance. "We took a lot on faith with you. With Cloud, we never knew what in planet's name was goin' down. Hell, I still don'."

"Thank you for your confidence- Yes I should have known there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point." His own history clearly made the case for silence and willful ignorance. "We are approximately 1.3miles from our target."

"-An I still don' understand why you ain't navigatin' _Captain_." Barett jibes. Cid merely continues to smoke blissfully.

"Bus man's holiday," he answers.

And with that, they press forward.

-0-

Barett knows something is off with the cave at once, and somehow, subconsciously knows it's got something to do with damn Shin-Ra.

There appeared to be no threat present with the small cave; there was only glowing rock and still gleaming puddles of water within recesses in the rock. There were no apparent entrances or exits or tunnels from within the main chamber, save for the hollow they had entered through.

Still, the place reeked of freaky science and weird shit he didn't understand, but somehow ended up with people dead, hurt, or otherwise maimed. Barett couldn't help quash the feeling he was being watched. He wanted to raise his gun-arm, but the idea seemed ridiculous – what was he planning to shoot at? The cave was empty, save for the three members of Avalanche.

So why, then, did he feel like there was something lurking there? He turns to surreptitiously observe the others, lest he be the only one on edge. "The fuck is this place?"

His companions, Vincent and Cid, remain silent on the question posed.

Cid seemed unimpressed, considering the route out. The ex-Turk on the other hand was, if it were possible for him to be paler, as white as a sheet, trigger finger twitching at his side.

Barett felt a shudder down his spine. Something was really fucking off alright, and he didn't know why.

Vincent's ears had begun to ring the second he set foot inside the cave, and in fact he had not even heard Barett at all. His skin had erupted in gooseflesh, hairs stood on end, reacting primally to a threat he couldn't not perceive at a superficial level at least. There was someone – or something- here. It wasn't... natural.

Then it hit him; the gentle background static of the waterfall beyond the cave's mouth had ceased. The cavern was eerily still, save for the gentle drip of water droplets into muted pools beneath. He somehow knew that if he tried to leave the cave, he would not be able to.

Then, a voice. A voice he had for a time longed to hear, yet now, in these circumstances, filled him with dread.

 _Vincent, is that you?_

Where none had been before, there now stood a woman. Her figure was hazy and bright; focusing upon her would only render you temporarily blind. Vincent found turning his head slightly, he could perceive her features – though how much of this was from memory, he couldn't say.

There were too many nights to count where he had lain awake beside her, watching her sleep, else sharing sweet nothings in the afterglow of their lovemaking. Images of her at work in the lab accosted him now; in her white coat, pushing glasses up the bridge of her nose when she was trying to take a read-out from a machine or enter notes into a chart – they never seemed to stay put. The way she would ask him to help her lift something heavy, only to shut the doors of the store room, push him against the shelving while she simultaneously lifted her skirt. The way her fingers undid his shirt, ran through hair, traced shapes across his skin in the dark.

"Lucrecia."

 _The time for Chaos is now. It is time for you to wake up and fulfill your destiny._

"Vince, what the fuck is happening?!" Barett yelled, gun arm pointed at the vague women-shape that was too bright to look at, and appeared to be the form of Vincent's dead-lover. "What is she talking about?"

The momentary sensory shutdown that preceded his transformations settled upon him. Closing his eyes, he became aware of everything outside his normal fields of perception; He could feel singular grains of dust between the pads of his fingertips, each tiny undulation in the rock surface beneath the soles of his feet, could smell the scales of the fishes that once swam in the waters that now stagnated here in the cave's pools. Lucrecia's face was visible behind his eyelids. She wore an expression of regret, and pain.

 _I'm so sorry._

His cells were beginning to rearrange themselves at a speed imperceptible to the human eye. He felt a burning in the center of his chest, as though some organ had become molten. His skim seemed electrified, and indeed upon observation, it began to glow and change hue.

His last moment of clarity came as he turned to Cid and Barett and cried, "Run, while you can. And don't come back for me! Tell Tifa I-"

Whatever it was he wished to tell her, they never heard. Above their heads came a familiar sound of rock cracking; a deep aching of the earth that rumbled around them and shook the ground beneath their feet. They indeed turned and ran, looking back only to shield their eyes from a blinding amethyst glow. Silhouetted against the light, was something that both was and wasn't Vincent.

They stumbled and ran, arms thrown overhead to shield their heads from falling stone and debris, falling to their knees once they reach the safety of the river bank. The cave's mouth behind them is blocked with rockfall, a settling dust cloud the only evidence the cave had stood open at all.

"We're... we're gunna have to tell her." Cid's voice trembled with emotion. He'd always liked Vincent, no matter anyone else's view. He preferred the no-bullshit types. And he'd always likes Tifa, too. He hated the fact they'd have to give her even more bad news. The gal never seemed to catch a break. And if he knew anything about her, she'd take the loss personally, given their recent disagreements.

Barett began a continued stream of curses, a litany of swearing that served to vent both his grief and his confusion. This wasn't the first time he'd lost people to falling rubble. He couldn't say he was especially close to Vincent, but still, he was a member of Avalanche, and that meant family.

Yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that he hadn't seen the last of the Ex-Turk.

He maintained his prayer of malediction under his breath while Cid made the dreaded call.

"Cloud, this is Cid. We've... we're in trouble. You need to get here as quick as you can."

-0-

The ship returned over a hour before it was due to pick up her party from their Materia hunt. Luckily, they'd had some success with some intel on the possible location of some Grand Materia, and so they were ready for extraction.

Yuffie seemed pleased enough to be heading back. Far from being relieved, however, Tifa was overcome with the notion that something wasn't right.

Sure enough, as they embarked, a crew member approached hurriedly, holding a memo that he didn't seem to need to consult, but that gave him the courage to get the words out. "Cap says to go to the Bridge immediately. There's been an accident in a cave, and... Vincent was inside."

"Accident?" She feels as though she is plummeting to the ground from a hundred feet up, though she remains firmly planted on the Highwind's subdeck. "What kind of accident?"

"Cap's on deck. Best you ask him."

She doesn't recall walking to the deck. She doesn't feel Yuffie's hand reaching for hers. She is hardly aware the ship has taken off again at breakneck speed, hurling her from side to side as she tries to make her way up to the Bridge.

Cid is in position by the pilot as always, and looks like a little boy caught stealing. Like he would rather be swallowed up by the earth than on the deck, having to break the news.

Everyone is on deck, except...

"Vincent. Where is Vincent."

Cid is holding his hat in his hands, wringing the fabric tight. She notes his clothing is covered in dust. "There was a cave-in, Tifa. We... we think he... he caused it to happen."

"What? I don't understand."

He tells her in as brief terms as possible what he had witnessed in the cave. Barett stood at his side, nodding gravely.

"Teef, it... we couldn' stop it. He told us to run, like he knew what wus gunna happen."

"Did you make sure?! We need to go back now! He might still be in there; we can get him out!" She makes a gesture towards the nav terminal, unable to understand why they were wasting time here talking when Vincent needed their help.

"The cave is completely blocked. We tried... We tried movin' the rubble away but... There's no way he could have survived it. I'm sorry Tifa, but... Vincent is... gone."

Nothing made sense. He wanted it to happen? No! She wouldn't believe it! He was fatalistic in many ways, but he had yet to accomplish what he had set out for; Hojo remained on the Earth, Sephiroth ensconced behind the forcefield at the Crater. Vincent didn't want to die. Not yet, not like _this_.

A mournful scream sounds into the silence. The vessel emitting it sounds hollow and empty. Nothing left to give, just an endless stream of sorrow and regret. Only as Barett's arms encircle her body, as he murmurs empty consolations into her ear does she release she was the one screaming.

-0-


End file.
